Baltic, Finnish NGOs call for greater cooperation to phase out fossil fuels in region

• Published date: 27 May 2022
• Publication title: LETA

TALLINN, May 27 (LETA--BNS) - Forty-nine civil society organizations and networks of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland signed a joint letter earlier this week, calling their leaders to foster regional cooperation to achieve independence from Russian fossil fuels and eventually, all fossil fuels.

The letter contains several recommendations for heads of governments to consider ahead of the meeting of the European Council next week.

The associations say that while the three Baltic countries and Finland have shown remarkable cooperation in foreign policy and security matters since the start of the war in Ukraine, "regrettably, similar regional coordination is lacking when it comes to planning the next steps to move away from Russian fossil fuels."

ccording to the NGOs, the individual countries are overly focused on solely diversifying gas supplies to increase the resilience of their energy systems, while we should be joining forces to accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels in the region.

"The current situation, where Estonia, Latvia and Finland are all looking into building permanent LNG terminals, threatens creating far too much capacity for fossil gas compared to regional demand. These projects would lock the region into the costly and polluting fossil fuel for decades to come. The region cannot afford these uncoordinated efforts spearheaded by the private sector to derail the progress of the green transition," the associations say.

They call on the region's governments to deliver a regional assessment of the possibilities of gas sector decarbonization with specific numbers and expected shortages for gas demand.

"The assessment needs to be compliant with international obligations, such as the European Green Deal, Fit for 55 package and the Paris Agreement. To reduce the risk of building too much LNG capacity in the context of the inevitable sharp decline of gas demand due to climate goals and necessary decarbonization, it is imperative that no permanent fossil gas infrastructure, including LNG terminals, is planned before such analysis has been compiled," the appeal says.

The governments also should prevent further fossil fuel lock-ins by providing a strict time limit to any emergency diversification of gas supplies. Diversification should only be seen as a temporary measure until moving away from fossil fuels is achievable by means of energy savings, massive rollout of renewable energy and use of renewable gases, such as biogas from agricultural waste...