Qatar threatens the EU with cutting off liquefied gas exports.
According to Reuters, the Qatari government has threatened the European Union in an official letter to Belgium that it may cut off all natural gas exports to Europe in response to the bloc’s new climate regulations.
Qatar is the third-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas after the United States and Australia. Doha has supplied between 12 and 14 percent of Europe’s natural gas needs since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad bin Sherida Al-Kaabi said in the letter that the country had decided in response to the so-called “Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive/CSDDD.” Under this law, large companies operating in the European Union are required to thoroughly assess and find and remedy human rights and, in particular, environmental issues in their supply chains.
The letter reads in part: “Simply put, if further amendments are not made to the CSDDD law, the Government of Qatar and the state-owned Qatar Energy Company will have no choice but to find alternative markets for its natural gas and other products outside the EU, markets that provide a more stable and friendly trading environment.”
According to a spokesperson for the European Commission, the body received a letter from the Government of Qatar on May 13, following which European lawmakers and countries are in discussions to amend the law.
In the letter, Al-Kaabi stated that Qatar specifically expressed concern about requiring companies to have a “climate change-adapted transition plan” in line with preventing global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius, the ceiling targeted in the Paris climate agreement.
Another part of the letter states that “neither the Government of Qatar nor Qatar Energy has any plans to achieve ‘net zero/zero greenhouse gas emissions’ shortly. This law undermines the right of countries to determine the amount of national contribution to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.”