Poised to split the EU and poison the climate for generations, the controversial Nord Stream 2 fossil gas pipeline is almost complete. With Russian Premier Vladimir Putin its nominal chief, the €10 billion project to transport Siberian gas to western European markets is headed by a former German Chancellor and a former spy in the East German Secret Police. To understand how such a project could come this far, despite tightening environmental regulations and ever more alarming scientific evidence, one must look at the personalities behind the pipeline. In the second in a series of posts, lead blogger L. Michael Buchsbaum reviews the strange bedfellows created by Nord Stream 2’s climate killing politics.
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Litmus test: Will regulators acknowledge Nord Stream’s footprint?
While construction on the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 fossil gas pipeline nears completion, international media attention remains focused squarely on its geopolitical significance. Often missing are the project’s looming climate impacts. Following the landmark decision by Germany’s Constitutional Court ordering politicians to protect future generations from climate harm by staying within the nation’s carbon budget, NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe or Environmental Action Germany is suing the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) to revoke its construction permit. Despite the pipeline being the largest fossil fuel project in Europe, its climate impacts have never been reviewed during its approval process, nor has any official body ordered a complete lifecycle analysis of the project. Against this backdrop, Nord Stream 2 is also a litmus test of Germany’s commitment to climate. The first in a series of posts, lead blogger Michael Buchsbaum reviews how Nord Stream 2 contradicts German and European Union climate targets, the 2015 Paris Agreement and violates recent court decisions.