Recently, the European Union is planning to draft "sustainable" investment regulations, requiring natural gas related projects to meet the emission requirements of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, or they will not be included in the scope of "sustainable" investment.

It is understood that the EU's move is to stimulate private funds with more than billions of euros to increase investment in low-carbon projects, so as to promote the EU region to achieve zero carbon target in 2050.

The EU will ensure that funds do not "go wrong" to gas projects that do not meet emission standards. Reuters pointed out that the EU's upcoming "sustainable" regulation is expected to be finalized by the end of this year, stipulating that financial service providers should disclose from the end of 2021 which investments meet climate standards and projects labeled as "sustainable" can obtain financing smoothly.

Since March this year, a number of companies, including BP, total and Statoil, have jointly drafted an open letter to EU leaders, hoping to build rules for a green financial system on the basis of the existing natural gas market.

As early as last year, the European investment bank said it would limit investment in high emission fossil fuel projects, and announced emission standards for natural gas power generation, which would not exceed 250 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour, and required that investment in fossil fuel projects that did not meet the standards should be banned by the end of 2021.

According to the new rules, investment projects with the "sustainable" label need to play a role in combating climate change, and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by natural gas power generation can not exceed 100 grams per kilowatt hour. At the same time, for new natural gas pipeline projects, if they want to obtain the "sustainable" marketing label, they need to be able to transport low-carbon fuels, such as adding more low-carbon gases such as hydrogen into the natural gas pipeline, or installing relevant facilities to reduce methane leakage.

At present, the official response of the European Commission said that there might be room for revision of the draft, but refused to comment on the draft.

Source: China Environment News