winning hearts for renewables

For renewable energy expansion, community support is as crucial as faster permitting and streamlined bureaucracy. Renewable projects must act as catalysts for local economic benefits and enhanced social cohesion, transforming “Not in my backyard” into a “Yes, in my backyard” mindset.

Wind and solar power are rapidly displacing fossil fuel technologies and increasingly dominate electricity generation. This growth in renewable generation softened the blow of rising energy costs for many Europeans last winter. Yet the record-breaking heatwaves, droughts and wildfires that wreaked havoc across Europe this summer underline that more needs to be done on renewables – and urgently.

Slow and complex authorisation procedures have been identified as a key obstacle to the expansion of renewable energy sources. The REpowerEU plan, the Emergency Council Regulation on the acceleration of renewables, and the most recent adoption of the revised EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) aim to simplify and accelerate the approval process for new renewable energy projects.

These new EU rules can work. Their success on the ground now lies in the hands of EU member states. It is up to them to implement the rules wisely, ensuring public participation and community involvement, as well as synergies with nature conservation. It is also up to the European Commission to monitor progress and provide support.

Planning makes perfect

Thousands of gigawatts of renewable power generation capacity need to be added to Europe’s energy mix every year for it to limit global warming to 1.5°C, according to the Paris Agreement Compatible energy scenario developed by Climate Action Network Europe and the European Environmental Bureau. An energy transition of this magnitude is not just about technological change; it has several social and environmental implications that need to be taken seriously.

As public authorities and renewable energy developers gear up to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy installations and electricity grids, the first question they should be asking is: how can we plan ahead to maximise benefits to local communities and minimise impacts on biodiversity?

Part of the answer lies in careful mapping and spatial planning to identify the most suitable locations for renewable energy development and guide acceleration accordingly. The recently adopted RED requires countries to map their territory and designate ‘acceleration zones’ for renewable energy developments. Integrating reliable data on land use and environmental sensitivity, together with accurate information on local energy demand, socioeconomic sensitivity, grid access and renewable energy potential, is crucial.

Evidence-based planning will direct the bulk of onshore and offshore renewable energy development where environmental and social impacts are minimised. Collecting reliable data through proper environmental assessments is also key to this. Project-level assessments can help fill existing knowledge gaps and identify appropriate mitigation measures to prevent and reduce impacts on biodiversity in any suitable location, including outside the acceleration zones.

Innovation and upskilling

To ensure that the accelerated renewable energy machine doesn’t grind to a halt, it is essential that administrations are equipped with the right tools and skilled staff.

Geographic information systems (GIS) can be a valuable resource for planners and developers to identify no-regret sites. For example, mapping out brownfield sites (abandoned coal mines or industrial parks, for example) for new renewable energy projects can save valuable planning time. Innovation is also needed in terms of skills, as planners and local authorities need to have the necessary knowledge to use GIS and make it an integral part of planning processes.

On the technology side, governments must work with local authorities to move the planning process fully online. Many examples highlight a pressing need for digital permitting tools to streamline project assessments and approvals. These should help permitting authorities and developers synchronise their workflows and facilitate access to relevant data. Public access to continuously updated project permitting processes should also be facilitated.

An essential part of getting these tools up and running is administrative capacity. Recruiting and training sufficient staff in the relevant departments of planning and permitting authorities is an absolute priority to ensure the quality of environmental screening and assessment, to anticipate and address potential legal challenges, and to reduce permitting times in practice.

Building public support for renewables in Europe

There is undeniable support among civil society and the general public for increasing the uptake of renewable energy across the EU. Yet local opposition is considered one of the biggest barriers to renewable energy deployment. The ‘Not In My Backyard’ (NIMBY) argument is often used to explain this, suggesting that people are in favour of renewable energy as long as it is not near them.

However, this is an oversimplification that fails to capture a more complex reality. In fact, when local people are consulted early and their views taken into account, project approvals become easier and faster. It is essential that developers engage with local communities as early as possible and involve them in the decision-making process in a tangible way. Public consultations on the design and siting of utility-scale projects can dramatically reduce the likelihood of subsequent legal challenges. This could be a game-changer in preventing new solar and wind projects from being held up in court.

What is more, there is growing demand for self-production and collective ownership of renewable energy assets. Democratic energy communities are growing steadily across the EU, allowing residents to invest directly in projects and fully benefit from their financial returns.

With the groundwork in place for a rapid acceleration towards locally produced renewable energy in Europe, now is the time for administrations to convince citizens this is the right revolution. By promoting a participatory, environmentally sound and benefit-sharing energy transition, we can lead Europe towards ‘Yes, in my backyard’.

Originally published in European Environmental Bureau (EEB) META magazine, November 28, 2023 at  bit.ly/3QZUEEv   Author is Cosimo Tansini, the Policy Officer for Renewables at EEB.

This article was originally published in the Energy Monitor with Seda Orhan from CAN Europe.

An Update

In November 2021 we published an ieBLOG on “The Writing on the Climate Wall: Businesses and industries can read it.”  We argued that in light of recent developments, including uncontested scientific studies and the shift in public awareness, partly resulting from spreading and intensifying extreme weather events, a certain  consensus had been reached.

 …  businesses and industries increasingly understand what is happening with the climate.  Like it or not the world has changed and will change even more and faster, and there is no going back. If they want to survive and prosper, they have to build and operate for a world run by renewable energy and sustainable practices.  It is in their own best interest.  And ours.

We also noted that:

But we’re not delusional about any fundamental transformation of how business is conducted across the globe.  While we argue that certain changes are inevitable, that only means they are “certain to happen; unavoidable.”   But it is not clear just when they will happen.  And with climate breakdown things can turn deadly quickly.

Things are indeed turning deadly quickly.  Is business heeding what they see clearly written on the wall?

Clearly not some.  Take for instance Exxon Mobil, always the prime suspect in any anti-social behavior that undermines the public good.   While a number of the biggest players in the fossil fuel arena are investing in renewable energy, Exxon is buying one of the largest shale companies in the US, Pioneer Natural Resources, a major player in fracking.  It is Exxon’s largest deal since its merger with Mobil Oil in1998 and represents a bet that fossil fuel production in the US has a bright future, if you consider more CO2 in the atmosphere illuminating.

ExxonMobil was not alone in its embrace of more oil, as Chevron has agreed to buy the American oil and gas producer Hess Corporation.  Both Exxon and Chevron are investing, in part, the huge profits they have enjoyed from the public as result of the recent energy crisis.

In contrast, some of the larger European energy majors, including BP and TotalEnergies, are expanding investment in renewable energy at a faster pace than the US competitors.

At the same time Exxon and Mobil were doubling down on their commitment to more oil and gas, the International Energy Agency (IEA) was projecting a peaking of demand for fossil fuels by 2030.  As the Executive Director, Faith Birol, has stated: “The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable. It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’ – and the sooner the better for all of us’.”

While the IEA and fossil fuel companies differ, only one has a vested financial interest in the continuing expansion of fossil fuel usage.  So who do you believe?

It might be a bit paranoid but we cannot exclude the possibility that Exxon could be using its $60 billion in the purchase of Pioneer simply to try to persuade the public and policy makers that fossil fuel is here to stay so there’s no use trying to curtail its usage.

Or perhaps Exxon is doing only what it knows best: acquiring assets in order to generate cash flow, and profits.  But here’s the rub to that approach.  The world is changing and there are some cheap widely-adopted alternatives for energy beyond fossil fuels.  Perhaps these recent acquisitions are the last gasp from an aging and outdated business model.  Maybe Exxon and others are having their own deadly Kodak Moment:  refusing to acknowledge that their product (film camera) is outdated and being replaced by a new technology (digital camera).

Kodak, formerly one of the country’s largest companies,  declared bankruptcy in 2012.

Sources:

“The Writing on the Climate Wall: Businesses and industries can read it,” ieBLOG in irish environment (1 Nov 2021) at  https://www.irishenvironment.com/blog/the-writing-on-the-climate-wall/

Callum Jones and Dharna Noor, “Exxon reinforces support for fossil fuels with deal to buy shale giant for $60bn:  Deal to buy Pioneer Natural Resources shows Exxon’s confidence that fossil fuel output will not be hampered in years to come,” The Guardian (11 Oct 2023). bit.ly/46xjSR4

David Sheppard and Ian Johnston, “Chevron betting on lasting fossil fuel demand with $53bn purchase of US oil producer Hess: All-stock deal comes after ExxonMobil acquired Pioneer Natural Resources earlier this month,” The Irish Times (23 Oct 2023). bit.ly/3MpSiNP

Clifford Krauss, “Chasing Big Mergers, Oil Executives Dismiss Peak Oil Concerns,” New York Times (26 Oct 2023).  bit.ly/47aw1vl

International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook (WEO) (Oct 2023).  See IEA,” The energy world is set to change significantly by 2030, based on today’s policy settings alone” (with link to full WEO-2023 report).  bit.ly/3tZPQaw

Brad Plumer, “Fossil Fuel Use Will Peak by 2030, Energy Agency Says,” The New York Times (25 Oct 2023).  bit.ly/3QGWpaR

See “Kodak Moment” in iePEDIA section of current issue of www.irishenvironment.com (Nov 2023)

Everlasting pollution – FRANCE 24 (21 April 2023)

Their unfolding attacks on Pádraic Fogarty and the Irish EPA

Pádraic Fogarty is one of the most informed, committed and articulate defenders of Ireland’s environment who worked tirelessly for 20 years with the Irish Wildlife Trust (IWT).  He is widely respected by those who work to protect Ireland’s environment.  In July he wrote a post entitled “Drift of the Farm Orgs” for the IWT blog.   The blog was sharply critical of positions that the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has been adopting toward their obligations to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs), suggesting the IFA was acting like far-right conspiracists and other reactionary groups.

Apparently the IFA flipped out and, somehow or another, put pressure on the Wildlife Trust which edited Fogarty’s blog to delete several descriptions which it claimed were or could be “politically divisive.”

In light of the Trust’s edits, in effect censorship, Fogarty resigned.

Below is the edited version of Fogarty’s blog, with editorial comments from IWT disavowing the article, and some further comments on the incident.

Pádraic Fogarty, “Drift of the farm orgs”  Dated 15th July 2023

“This blog represents the views of the author and is not an Irish Wildlife Trust position.” [edit]

Last May, I found myself on the farm of Donie Regan in the west of County Offaly. The open day was organised by the Farm Carbon project that he is involved with. Donie farms cattle on the edge of a raised bog and some of his land is peaty. This project is looking at practical solutions to rewetting these peaty soils, which are a large source of carbon emissions. He and his wife welcomed all and sundry with tea and sandwiches, told us about the wildlife he sees on his farm and how he was happy to be involved with the project. He has even blocked drains to help raise the water table but didn’t see this as a threat to his business as it was only a small part of his farm that would be affected.

Donie is one of thousands of farmers across Ireland taking part in agri-environmental schemes funded by the taxpayer through the Department of Agriculture. Under this ‘European Innovation Project’, farmers volunteer to take part in schemes that help to deliver results for climate, biodiversity or water quality. Farmers get paid for delivering the results while allowing the land to be used as trial fields to see what works and what doesn’t. The visitors included environmental groups, neighbouring farmers and peatland scientists. The atmosphere was collaborative, inquisitive and forward thinking.

Indeed, Ireland is full of farmers like Donie: engaged, proud of their land and their role in their communities, and willing to try new things. If he was nervous about the future and the changes that are coming for the agricultural sector, it didn’t come across on our day out.

Most people will not get to meet Donie or to visit his farm to appreciate the work he is doing. Indeed, most people will probably see farming in Ireland through the media appearances of the farming organisations and they project a very different picture of the sector.

Irish farm organisations increasingly appear happy to spread conspiracy theories, undermine scientists and their findings and convince their members that their way of life is under attack by an urban elite that cares little for them or their values. It is an approach that sets them increasingly adrift not only from the direction of public policy but also public opinion.

They have adopted a hard ‘no’ position on nearly all measures designed to address the climate and biodiversity emergencies.

The approach is leading to frustration among many, including traditional allies who see no flexibility or willingness to adapt. This week, five Fine Gael MEPs voted against the lobbying demands of the farm organisations in supporting the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) even though a former Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) president is now an advisor to Fine Gael on agriculture and rural affairs. In doing this, the MEPs even went against their political grouping in the European Parliament.

Although the voice of farmers is more dissipated than ever before, it is still dominated by the IFA and these days, they are on the wrong side of every argument. They lobbied hard against emissions ceilings in the Climate Act, opposed the EU’s Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies which aimed to make farming more sustainable, oppose reducing dependence on pesticides, spoke out against the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss and, most recently, lobbied hard to kill off the NRL.

In this latter campaign, they sided with Manfred Weber’s EPP which used the NRL as a testing ground for Trumpian-levels of disinformation and scaremongering. IFA president, Tim Cullinan, was seen behind the shoulder of Weber on the day of the European Parliament vote in Strasbourg this week, as he denounced the NRL as a threat to farmers and food security.

This is an odd alliance in one way as the EPP is also lobbying for approval of the MERCOSUR deal that would see more South American beef imported to the EU, something the IFA has simultaneously argued against on the basis that it would further undermine beef prices for Irish farmers.

The IFA was once respected and feared in equal measure, however those days are gone. But rather than recognise the shifting centres of power and influence they have instead sharpened their divisive rhetoric. In response to the impending loss of the Nitrates derogation, that would see some farmers forced to reduce the amount of manure they can spread on their land due to worsening levels of water pollution, the IFA hit out at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an independent body of respected scientists, slamming their report into nutrient levels in waterways as “nonsensical”. A separate, EPA-commissioned report from February on how our land-use sector could achieve net zero emissions by 2050 was denounced as “fundamentally flawed” and the IFA demanded that it be “immediately reject[ed]”.

But it’s not only the IFA. The Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Organisation represents livestock and dairy farmers. Its president, Pat McCormack, speaking to RTÉ radio in June, challenged the idea that there is a biodiversity crisis, asking listeners to instead consider the loss of habitat from motorways or the impact of mink on wildlife.

In advance of the vote on the NRL, the Irish Times gave McCormack free reign to vent his conspiracy theory that environmentalists and corporations are in league “to end traditional farming” and to repeat well-debunked myths regarding the regulation, including that “acres [that] had once been “marsh”… must be returned to that state forthwith”.

Having split off from the IFA in 2015, the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) aims to represent farmers with land designated for nature conservation. They have every reason to feel grievance at the shabby treatment of the State which failed to respect their rights or adequately incentivise nature conservation.

However, their messaging to the outside world also rests on a mix of climate/extinction denial and predictions of apocalypse for rural Ireland. The passing of the NRL this week saw “farm families and their communities thrown under the bus” according to their twitter account, while blasting the proposed law as “the most frightening piece of legislation on land use that has ever came [sic] from Brussels”.

Their leader, Vincent Roddy, has questioned well established facts, such as that hills are badly degraded through overgrazing, as well as questioning public consultations that showed strong support for nature restoration as akin to Vladimir Putin’s referendums in annexed Ukrainian territories. A recent press release from the INHFA after a European Court ruling against Ireland for failing to implement the Habitats Directive, called for the directive to be renegotiated entirely, something they must surely know can never be delivered.

The farm orgs were once conservative, centrist figures in Irish society. But in their doom-laden, denialist rhetoric they have found themselves in the company of ragtag groups like the Rural Independent TDs, and fringe voices from the internet that are little more than WhatsApp chat groups.

It’s a far cry from the thousands of farmers in Ireland and elsewhere who want to see climate and biodiversity action but worry about growing inequality, volatile markets and a State that has yet to come up with a coherent plan for the future of farming and land use.

What can the farm organisations deliver for these farmers if they continue their march down the cul de sac they are on?

“*This article has been updated on 21st July 2023 to remove political references that could be perceived to be divisive. [IWF edit]”

“This blog represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the Irish Wildlife Trust [IWT edit]”

Apparently the original post by Fogarty described the IFA as endorsing “far right conspiracies” and characterized it as the DUP of Irish civil society.  The DUP – Democratic Unionist Party –  is the leading Northern Ireland Unionist political party founded by Ian Paisley and now led by Jeffrey Donaldson.  This author has met both Paisley and Donaldson and wonders who will be most offended by the comparison – the DUP or IFA.

As for the comparison between the IFA and far-right special interests that undermine climate science, we are lost as to how this is misleading, let alone offensive.   Just this week we have seen how the IFA is intensifying its efforts to undermine Ireland’s commitments to protect our environment.  See the recent attacks before the Oireachtas on the Irish EPA methods for measuring agricultural impact on nitrates pollution.  As usual, the IFA argues that the nitrates in our environment are primarily from elsewhere, anywhere, but not from farms.

Perhaps these two instances of IFA actions are coincidental, but we need to be wary that they may signal a new, more aggressive strategy of counterattacks on those seeking to hold the agriculture sector to account for its full share of climate breakdown.

We also need to add the caveat that when we refer to the IFA, and other agricultural political lobbying groups, we do not include individual farmers.

Sources:

Ellen ODonoghue, “Irish Wildlife Trust campaigns officer resigns after blog edited and parts removed:  Pádraic Fogarty says his article was changed following a complaint from the Irish Farmers’ Association,” The Irish Times (07 July 23).  bit.ly/3DtP5rq

Jamie McCarron, “Irish Wildlife Trust officer resigns after claiming farming groups are becoming far right: Pádraic Fogarty announced his resignation this morning, after the IWT edited the blog post to remove some political references,” The Journal (23 July 2023).   https://bit.ly/3Dyt5vN

EPA, Water quality monitoring report on nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in Irish waters 2022.  (2023)  www.epa.ie/publications/monitoring–assessment/freshwater–marine/EPA_NItrogenandPhosporous_Concentrations_2022_Final.pdf

Jim O’Brien, “EPA report ‘would limit farm stock levels, ruining farmers’, Oireachtas committee told.  TDs, Senators, IFA question causes of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in Irish waters,” The Irish Times (19 July 2023).  bit.ly/44ZIQaS