Greenpeace activists held a protest rally outside the headquarters of the INA oil and gas company in Zagreb on Wednesday, setting up a 3-metre-high mock-up of a gas platform releasing fossil gas into the atmosphere to warn of emissions of "the climate killer methane".

“Since the sinking of the Ivana D platform, Greenpeace has repeatedly called on the relevant institutions and INA to examine possible methane emissions on all off-shore platforms. Neither the relevant ministry nor INA have responded in two and a half years,” said Petra Andric, programme manager at Greenpeace Croatia.

She said that Greenpeace is in possession of data from reliable sources on methane concentrations around a certain number of off-shore gas platforms in the northern Adriatic, showing concentrations of over 100 ppm/m at nine platforms. At three of them concentrations exceeded 400, 500 and even 1,500 ppm/m.

Andric said that the fossil industry normally sends out field teams when concentrations exceed 200 ppm/m.

“We at Greenpeace believe that any emissions of this harmful greenhouse gas are unacceptable, let alone such substantial emissions,” Andric said, adding that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that any increase in global warming results in more intense and more frequent weather extremes. “We must not gamble with our future any more,” she said.

Andric said that INA and the government must show initiative and be more transparent, check if these were the cases of intentional release of gas, so-called venting, or uncontrolled release, and do all in their power to prevent this happening in the future.

“It is unbelievable that despite the environmental and climate crisis and galloping prices, the gas industry still considers it normal to release gas into the atmosphere and thus harm the climate,” Andric said.

Greenpeace says that based on the EU plan “Fit for 55”, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the EU is preparing a piece of legislation that would ban gas venting, except in extraordinary circumstances.

Croatia is also a signatory to the Global Methane Pledge which requires it to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 compared to 2020.