By Aled Jones, Anglia Ruskin University
Over the past few years there has been exponential growth in clean energy investment – while fossil fuel assets are increasingly considered to be risky. Yet, on February 6, the European Investment Bank, the EU’s long-term lending institution, voted to provide a €1.5 billion loan to the controversial Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
The TAP is the Western part of a larger Southern Gas Corridor proposal that would ultimately connect a large gas field in the Caspian Sea to Italy, crossing through Azerbaijan, Turkey, Greece and Albania. And while gas might be cleaner than coal, it’s still a fossil fuel.
So how does the EU’s support for this major project fit in with its supposed goal of addressing climate change?
