The UK government is giving billionaire Jim Ratcliffe a €700 million (£600 million) guarantee to build Europe’s biggest petrochemical plant in 30 years to turbocharge plastic production.
The massive petrochemical plant has been described as a “carbon bomb” by campaigners. The facility, built by Ratcliffe’s company Ineos in Antwerp, Belgium, will bring plastic production to Europe on an unprecedented scale, just as countries try to negotiate a binding global agreement to tackle the growing problem of plastic pollution.
More than 350 million tonnes of plastic waste is produced annually, and plastic waste is expected to increase to 1 billion tonnes by 2060. Campaigners say Antwerp is a major plastic production center in Europe, creating pollution from plastic pellets and emissions that are accelerating global warming.
But despite acknowledging the facility’s negative impact on climate, biodiversity, the environment and risks to social and human health, the British government has provided financial guarantees of €700 million to support the construction of Project One in Antwerp.
The support from the UK government’s export finance department, an arm of the Department for Business and Trade, to Ratfliffe, who is now the high-profile part-owner of Manchester United Football Club, is on top of support promised by the same department for Africa and countries within Africa. The Middle East will adapt to climate disruption.
Ratcliffe has been lobbying politicians in Europe against green policies that he claims are driving away investment.
Project One will import cracked shale gas from the United States to provide ethane to the cracker plant, which will produce 1,450 kilotonnes of ethylene, the building block of plastic, annually.
Details of financial support from the UK government emerged as environmental NGOs prepared a new legal challenge to stop Ratcliffe from building Project One. The UK government argues that its fiscal guarantees are consistent with its support for the global transition towards net zero.
But Jacob Kean-Hammerson, of the Environmental Investigation Agency in the UK, said: “Ineos is a big part of the plastics manufacturing supply chain and plastics manufacturers.
“By supporting this facility, the UK government is funding a major climate emissions project. “What we need is additional funding for climate-related adaptation, but the UK is giving more money to potentially large emitters than countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.”
Documents show that UK Export Finance (UKEF) was aware of Project One’s climate impact. “The project was recognized as having the potential to cause a range of adverse environmental and social impacts during both construction and operation,” the UK documents said.
Instead of visiting the site in Antwerp, authorities conducted a “desktop inspection”. They said that “the control package proposed as part of the project’s environmental and social management systems, if implemented effectively, will facilitate the management of these impacts.”
UKEF said Ineos had pledged to become carbon neutral for Scope 1 and 2 emissions 10 years after the start of operations, so this did not hinder the EU’s ability to deliver on existing climate-related policy or international commitments, including the Paris agreement.
An Ineos spokesman said: “Project One will produce the raw material required for medical products, insulation, transport and packaging. It will have the lowest carbon footprint of any facility of its kind in Europe. And by applying the latest technology, it has a clear roadmap to carbon neutrality within 10 years from inception. “Europe must be allowed to innovate its production technology and we will defend this project strongly in court.”
But plastic production is an extremely carbon-intensive business. According to NGO Break Free from Plastic, more than 99% of plastic comes from fossil fuels, and plastic production is the largest industrial user of oil, gas and electricity in the EU. Ineos acknowledges that it cannot replace fossil fuels as feedstocks in the petrochemical industry.
Jeroen Dagevos from the Plastic Soup Foundation, one of the NGOs challenging Project One, said: “There is already a huge plastic pollution problem from puppies in Antwerp and the Netherlands. This facility will bring US-scale plastic production to Europe. Puppies are everywhere, up to 23 billion plastic puppies are released into the environment every day in the EU alone.
“Plastic pollution is not under control. Today, almost half of plastic production consists of consumer goods and single-use packaging that will be thrown away. “Instead of building a huge new facility to massively increase plastic production, we need the industry to address the pollution problem they create.”
Britain said Ineos had promised that only 10% of ethylene produced would be used as single-use plastic. The rest will be used for construction materials, including pipes and cable ducts, according to UKEF.
Dagevos said: “How will they police this? There is no control over who buys the ethylene. “This will increase the production of single-use plastic packaging and single-use consumer goods in Europe.”
A government spokesman said: “UK Export Finance helps UK businesses win overseas contracts, deliver and receive payments.
“Our financing guarantee for Project One secures new export opportunities and is consistent with our ongoing support for the global transition towards net zero.”
Ineos publicly disputes the scientific evidence on the effects of plastic pollution on human health, the environment and the climate. Research shows that microplastics have been found in human blood for the first time.
Global production of single-use plastic fuels global warming and less than 10% of the 7 billion tonnes of plastic waste currently produced globally has been recycled.
But Ratcliffe’s company says on its website that plastic should be approached “with less emotion” and advocates the production of single-use plastic; He says less than 2 grams of plastic wrap protects one cucumber. “This will extend the ‘shelf life’ by 11 days! “A little plastic will prevent a lot of food waste.”