You report that the US Department of Interior is likely to give the go-ahead this week for Shell drilling in the Arctic this year (23 March). On the basis of the detailed inquiries that various US regulatory authorities have undertaken on Shell’s record in the Arctic, including the Kulluk incident two years ago, I am not going to tell the interior department how to do its job. Its responsibility for environmental protection will be a continuing one, and no doubt it will monitor oil companies’ performance on safety and spill-response capacity over the drilling season. The environmental audit committee’s inquiries and reports on the Arctic, carbon budgets and green finance nevertheless point to three key points: the environmental protection of the Arctic is an international responsibility that extends beyond the economic consensus priorities of the Arctic Council; the particular spill risks from drilling in the Arctic, including the difficulty in recovering spilt oil among and under the ice, require a strong precautionary principle approach to drilling regulation; and the logic of the growing financial risk of a “carbon bubble” for oil companies requires fossil fuel reserves to be left in the ground.
Joan Walley MP
Chair, environmental audit committee, House of Commons
.png?w=600)
