{"id":474329,"date":"2026-05-08T06:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/474329\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T06:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:36:11","slug":"under-us-pressure-eu-moves-to-soften-rules-for-fighting-climate-superpollutant-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/474329\/","title":{"rendered":"Under US pressure, EU moves to soften rules for fighting climate superpollutant\u00a0 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The International Association of Oil &amp; Gas Producers argues that companies can&#8217;t conform to the regulation in time \u2014\u00a0jeopardizing the EU\u2019s energy security by leaving 87 percent of crude oil supply and 43 percent of gas non-compliant for import.<\/p>\n<p>Critics say such warnings are overblown. The Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catf.us\/2026\/04\/why-claims-that-the-eu-methane-regulation-threatens-energy-supply-miss-the-mark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">says the IOGP\u2019s forecasts<\/a> are \u201ca result of unrealistic modelling choices, conservative market assumptions, and a basic misunderstanding of what the regulation actually requires.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Zombie rules<\/p>\n<p>The EU executive has ruled out reworking the legislation itself.\u00a0Instead the Commission has sought to balance industry demands against green ambitions by encouraging EU governments to \u201cpragmatically\u201d police the rules and take advantage of existing loopholes, as the draft guidance shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2263540813-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8401502\"  \/> In the draft guidelines the EU executive says governments can grant companies broad exemptions from penalties for breaching the rules if an energy crisis develops. | Thierry Monasse\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The fudge has left no one happy. Green groups say the proposed flexibilities are so far-ranging that they will permit all manner of rule breaches on ill-defined energy security grounds, without setting clear limits to such exemptions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The upshot is a \u201cSchr\u00f6dinger\u2019s cat situation, where they can say the regulation is still alive \u2026 but at the same time it doesn\u2019t have any teeth,\u201d said L\u00e9a Pilsner, a senior climate policy analyst at the Environmental Defense Fund. &#8220;The very real risk is a zombie regulation, one that walks and talks but is structured in a way that it never has to be enforced.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fossil fuel executives are no more enthusiastic, warning that the Commission&#8217;s approach risks worsening the sense of regulatory uncertainty. H\u00e5kon Fonseca Nordang, a spokesperson for IOGP\u2019s Europe branch, said that while the lobby group had yet to analyze the draft guidelines, \u201cit is difficult to see how a \u2018recommendation\u2019 \u2014 however well-intentioned \u2014 can supersede some of the challenging requirements set out in the regulation itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The International Association of Oil &amp; Gas Producers argues that companies can&#8217;t conform to the regulation in time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[442,18,12695,71275,178859,15912,440,20441,19,31763,18929,17,47616,9951,3476,11994,133,6935,384],"class_list":{"0":"post-474329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-emissions","11":"tag-energy-security","12":"tag-energy-supply","13":"tag-energy-crisis","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-fossil-fuels","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-imports","18":"tag-iran","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-natural-gas","21":"tag-oil","22":"tag-pollution","23":"tag-regulation","24":"tag-science","25":"tag-the-netherlands","26":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116537575872769464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}