The Government fails to stand up for the Arctic environment

On Friday Greenpeace's director Kumi Naidoo was apprehended while trying to board a drilling rig off the coast of Greenland, in order to stop Cairn Energy drilling for oil and gas in this critically sensitive environment.

Speaking before he set out to scale the platform, Mr Naidoo, said: "The Arctic oil rush is such a serious threat to the climate and to this beautiful fragile environment that I felt Greenpeace had no choice to return, so I volunteered to do it myself."

Greenpeace feels compelled to act because the UK Government won't.

Last week, Energy Minister Charles Hendry said in public for the first time what had thus far only been said in private - that it is UK policy to support drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic.

Since when did this become UK policy? And why has the House of Commons never debated it?

Hendry told an energy conference that Arctic drilling is "entirely legitimate" and that, "given the ability to carry out this work safely, this should be part of the work of the industry".

Energy and mineral companies are taking a great deal of interest in the area now that climate change has caused the ice cap over the Arctic Ocean to melt during the summer months more than ever before in recent history, thereby easing access to the seabed.

A report issued by the US Geological Survey in 2009 estimated that the Arctic contains as much as 13% of the world's remaining undiscovered oil and 30% of its undiscovered gas.

Of course, this is just speculation, but the melting ice has exposed something else: an absence of regulation to protect this fragile and beautiful environment.

Britain, not being an Arctic state, nevertheless has clear interests in the region. It is an observer on the Arctic Council, along with France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland and Spain.

The Council's full members are Canada, Denmark (representing also Greenland and Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the USA. It has several working groups which investigate the environmental and social aspects of developing the area.

But the Council is not a legally empowered body. It does not have the muscle to veto the actions of members, who in turn are not obliged to act in accordance with its deliberations.

In fact, it is a talk shop, which gives the appearance of collaboration between interested parties, while behind the scenes they frantically scurry to gain competitive advantage over access to the trillions of dollars of riches on the continental shelves surrounding the ocean. "There is in fact no strong consensus between the states," comments Anna Galkina, a researcher on this issue at think-tank Platform.

British companies BP, Shell and Cairn Energy are amongst those behind this struggle, which has recently seen BP spectacularly falling out with Russian giant Rosneft despite heavy UK government lobbying on its behalf.

BP's troubles seem all the more ironic when you know that on 14 January 2011 BP CEO Bob Dudley and Eduard Khudainatov, CEO of the Russian state oil giant Rosneft, following a meeting with Vladimir Putin, signed their original agreement in the presence of our Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne.

In the absence of any regulatory body capable of controlling this oil and gas rush, it has fallen to NGOs to try and put a brake on exploration.

Cairn Energy is at the forefront of the rush and is about to commence drilling off the Greenland coast. Twice this year Greenpeace has attempted to stop them with direct action, and in response Cairn has just obtained an injunction preventing them from boarding their rigs.

Hendry's phrase, "the ability to carry out this work safely", cannot be tested in public because Cairn refuses to publish its Oil Spill Response Plan despite a petition signed by almost 50,000 people and a highly unusual admonition by a judge in Amsterdam, who said that doing so would make absolute sense, even to the company concerned, if it really wanted to maximise the chances of preventing an accident.

I am putting in an FOI request to find out if Hendry, or anyone at DECC, had been shown Cairn's Oil Spill Response Plan for its Greenland operation before coming out with such unequivocal support. Because if he has seen it, why can't we all? And if he hasn't, how can he so confidently support the company?

Or has he forgotten BP's rather costly adventure in the Gulf of Mexico last year?

The US National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling concluded in its final report in January 2011 that "detailed geological and environmental information does not exist for the Arctic exploration areas and industry and support infrastructures are least developed, or absent

Lord Howell, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, is one minister heavily responsible for UK policy on the Arctic, and is involved in lobbying to support British oil companies' commercial interests abroad.

Yet the British Parliament has not had a chance to debate and decide this policy. The only time it has come remotely near to being discussed was in a poorly attended and very short debate in the House of Lords on the 6th December 2010, led at 8.02pm by Lord Jay.

There, Howell admitted that besides ostensibly protecting the Arctic environment, "our second aim is to protect crucial UK energy supplies from the region and promote UK business interests. Thirdly, we want to ensure access to fisheries and transport routes in the region, including the ones that may open up in the future-not just in summer but in winter."

Only then did he say that a fourth aim is "to promote wider UK Government objectives with regard to sustainable development, environmental protection and climate change".

It's not that he is unaware of the fact that all of this exploration is only possible because of climate change. He even commented on "the irony that the melting of the ice means that all sorts of possibilities open up for access to the huge hydrocarbon resources in the region." But he only talked of "how" - not whether - these "colossal reserves" might "be got out economically and in line with all the other restraints that the world wants."

I asked the Department for Energy and Climate Change if they would clarify their position. This is what I received in response: "regulation of Cairn's drilling proposals in the Arctic is a matter for the Greenland Government. As an observer in the Arctic Council, the UK has contributed to the development of the guidelines recently agreed by the Council on oil and gas, and supports robust provisions on environmental protection and sustainability in Arctic waters.

“More generally, the UK is participating in the G20 initiative to promote best practice and regulatory standards, to ensure that oil and gas activities carried out anywhere in the world align with industry best practice and are managed so as to ensure minimum impacts to the environment.”

Nothing about climate change.

The Arctic Council's guidelines on exploration were in fact agreed in 2009. They include acknowledgement of the principles of "polluter pays" and "the precautionary principle", and they recognise that the area "has high sensitivity to oil spill impacts and the least capacity for natural recovery".

Given the overwhelming threat of climate change, many NGOs, including Greenpeace and WWF, are demanding that no fossil fuels be extracted from the area. They are calling for the Arctic to become a scientific reserve, as the Antarctic is, and left alone.

There is, sadly, little chance of this. An important discussion document published in Washington in January this year - The Shared Future: A Report of the Aspen Institute Commission On Arctic Climate Change - supposedly takes "a hard and new look at climate change in the Arctic".

But does it call for a moratorium and a ban on drilling in the area? No. Its main recommendation is that "governance in the Arctic marine environment, which is determined by domestic and international laws and agreements, including the Law of the Sea, should be sustained and strengthen by a new conservation and sustainable development plan using an ecosystem-based management approach".

Amongst its 10 principles of Arctic governance is number 4: "Avoid exacerbating changes that may be difficult or impossible to reverse in temperature, sea-ice extent, pH and other key physical, chemical and biological ecosystem parameters."

It's hard to see how any exploration can go on in such harsh conditions which do not contain the risk of doing so. But the document falls short of admitting this.

Instead, it says that Arctic governments should take immediate steps to begin developing an Arctic Marine Conservation and Sustainable Development Plan by 2012, which "should also open the door to a new model of natural resource governance in the Arctic that promotes an ethic of stewardship and multinational use of best management practices".

Fine words. But while energy companies can't even publish their safety plans there is fat chance of this happening.

Diana Wallis, Vice President of the European Parliament and MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, and the Green Party's Caroline Lucas are alone amongst legislators in pushing for stronger regulation. Wallis' website allows people to vote on whether there should be a moratorium on oil exploration in the Arctic. Two thirds of voters there think there should be.

What she and I want to know is: why isn't the British Government standing up for the Arctic? Why is it caving into commercial interests?

And why can't there be a proper debate in the House of Commons on this crucial issue?

The battle in the British Isles against offshore drilling

Here's a question: in which country do you imagine that a police officer might say to a protestor who is trying to prevent an offshore gas/oil drilling exploration, “I have your last breath in my hands”?

Well, allegedly, it isn't the Gulf of Mexico but a good deal closer.

On the night of 14 July, a number of campaigners entered the water in Broadhaven Bay, County Mayo, on Ireland's north west coast, in kayaks and rafts in a peaceful attempt to prevent Shell from bringing in a borehole drilling platform.

They were met by five Garda water unit boats, with approximately 16 Gardaí on board.
Campaigners attempted to approach the platform but were prevented from
doing so by Gardaí who overturned their kayaks.

One managed to get close to the platform. When Gardaí overturned the kayak belonging to one of the campaigners, Eoin Lawless, he swam under the platform. A Garda then jumped into the water after him, and proceeded to drag him from the water into the nearby Garda boat.

Mr. Lawless rlates what happened next: “I said I would leave the area but they knelt on my back. One Garda then pinched my throat with his two fingers and cut off my air supply. He held me like that for about 90 seconds, allowing me to take one or two gasps. He kept saying into my ear that he had my last breath in his hands.

"It was terrifying. I truly believed he might kill me."

Mr. Lawless received medical attention at Belmullet Garda station and afterwards called for human rights observers to come back down to Mayo as a matter of urgency.

Such observers have been there before, because this is not the first time such a incident, or worse, has happened, in this long-running dispute that has been barely reported in the UK.

An independent report by Front Line, The International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, concluded this year that Irish Government-sponsored incidents against these protestors, who are mostly local fishermen and crofters worried about the impact of the development on their livelihood in this environmentally-sensitive area, warranted defence under human rights legislation.

Off-shore discovery
The bakground to this story is that gas was found off North Mayo in 1996 by Enterprise Oil. A consortium of oil companies was established to develop the gas field, called Enterprise Energy Ireland EEI.

Shell later took over the exploration and now plans a pipeline coming onshore at Glengad, then crossing under Sruwaddacon Bay to Rossport and journeying nine kilometres overland to a refinery at Bellanaboy.

The development is controversial for a number of reasons. The planned pipeline is a high pressure one. It also carries raw gas, which is more volatile. Some residents argue that it goes too near to their houses – and fear the effects of an explosion. The refinery is located in – and the pipeline passes through – ecologically sensitive areas.

Shell to Sea, the group representing locals opposed to the project, has another concern – that the terms upon which the State has granted rights to oil companies were too generous (see below).

Shell to Sea wants the gas refined at sea on a shallow water platform.

In 2008, a previous group of protestors, Pobal Chill Chomáin, claiming to represent most locals opposed to the development, proposed building the refinery elsewhere – such as at Glinsk, a remote area in Mayo – with the pipeline coming onshore by a different route.

Shell has rejected this proposal. The refinery at Bellanaboy has now been substantially built. In order to pass over the lands at Rossport, either the consent of landowners had to be sought or compulsory purchase orders had to be made.

Most landowners consented but six did not. In 2004 planning permission was granted by an Bord Pleanála for the refinery at the Bellanaboy site, but the decision was a controversial one. Previously, a planning inspector had advised that the proposed development defied “any rational understanding of the term ‘sustainability’”.

Imprisonment
Some Rossport residents defied a court order by preventing Shell agents entering lands over which the planned pipeline was to run. As a result, they were imprisoned for 94 days. The men concerned became known as the Rossport 5. They were released on 30 September 2005. Their campaign against Shell’s plans had now become an international news story.

The Irish government commissioned a review of safety issues - but the consultancy commissioned to carry out the review, British Pipeline Agency (BPA), was 50% owned by Shell. BPA kept quiet about this, even though they knew that the Minister wanted the review to be independent. The Minister did not find out until after the report was published. This did not endear him to objectors or solve the stand-off, which has continued to date.

Shell went ahead with some works at Bellanaboy without authorisation. A new report was commissioned that expressed concern that the maximum pressure for the onshore pipeline be more than halved from 345 bar to 144 bar. Shell accepted this but protestors were not satisfied with the report because it didn't consider whether processing should be offshore or alternative routes for the pipeline or an alternative site for the refinery.

There have been many other objections. For example, levels of aluminium in discharge water from the Bellanaboy plant regularly exceeding those permitted by very large margins; a slip road being built without planning permission at Glengad; unauthorised drilling carried out by Shell consultants in a Special Area of Conservation.

The Bolivian connection
More significantly, the security firm hired by Shell, IRMS, was accused of being heavy-handed. It has come under scrutiny because some of its employees have been involved in activities on behalf of gas and oil interests in Bolivia which led to one of them, Michael Dwyer from Tipperary, being shot by the Bolivian government for involvement in a plot to destabilise the government of President Evo Morales.

This is where the plot gets even murkier.

Bolivia is the key player in the struggle by developing countries to secure justice in the international climate negotiations. Three months ago it hosted the World People´s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth carried out in Cochabamba.

Oil companies are prominent amongst those lobbying against action to counter climate change. Removing the Bolivian government would clearly be in their interests.

Links to oil and gas companies are indeed mentioned in a Prime Time investigation into the death of Dwyer, and the involvement of colleagues he met through his work with IRMS at Rossport, by reports Paul Murphy and Oonagh Smyth for the tv company RTE, broadcast on 3 December 2009.

They uncovered that the right wing Hungarian terrorist who recruited Dwyer and wanted to overturn the La Paz government was financed to the tune of millions of dollars, way beyond the capacity of local business interests to raise alone, and trace it back to oil and gas companies.

The Frontline report notes that one of the security guards had posted "inappropriate material regarding operations on Glengad" on a website he ran. He also headed a far right group, the Szeckler legion.

IRMS itself was not involved with the Bolivian group. But it has been involved in a string of violent incidents against protestors, along with the Gardai. Fisherman Pat O’Donnell for example claims that his boat was sunk by masked men on 11 June 2009.

He and others have been in Castlerea prison for much of this year for refusing to stop fishing in the vicinity of the proposed tunnel. He was released after 158 days on 17 July.

Another boat has been confiscated by the Gardai.

And on 22/23 April 2009 one Willie Corduff was allegedly assaulted by Gardaí and IRMS staff. Mr Corduff had been staging a sit in under a truck.

IRMS and Gardai boats have also on at least one occasion rammed the boats of protestors.

Last week, on the same night that Eoin Lawless was struggling to breathe at the hands of a policeman, a film about O'Donnell and the campaign, ‘The Pipe’ won best documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh.

The protest continues

The protest continues, led by a body called Shell to Sea, which claims it is a national campaign with active groups based across Ireland. It has three main aims:

• to have the Corrib gas field exploited in a safe way that will not expose the local community in Erris to unnecessary health, safety and environmental risks;
• to renegotiate the terms of the Great Oil and Gas Giveaway, which "sees
Ireland’s 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent off the West Coast go directly to the oil companies, with the Irish State retaining a 0% share, no energy security of supply and only 25% tax on profits against which all costs can be deducted";
• finally, to seek justice for the human rights abuses suffered by Shell to Sea campaigners.

Shell plans to drill up to 80 boreholes to survey the Sruth Fhada Chonn estuary to determine the course of a tunnel under the estuary linking up the offshore pipeline with the proposed inland refinery. The new route is still within 250m of several houses and the local community remains opposed to the plans.

The estuary is a Specially Protected Area & part of the Broadhaven Bay Special Area of Conservation. Protestors claim that the operation will damage parts of the estuary & disturb the wildlife there, particularly Atlantic salmon, otters & birds found on the intertidal areas.

Shell to Sea say their aim is to try to stop Shell from drilling the boreholes over the next few months through a campaign of peaceful protest.

In the planetwide shadow cast by BP's offshore drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, these protestors' battle with the authorities has a significance way beyond the normally quiet Western Isles.

> www.shelltosea.com/content/environment

"5,000 to 7,000 more offshore wind turbines" - report

Environmental study to inform location of future offshore energy developments

A new Government study of the UK's shores has recommended that between 5,000 to 7,000 more offshore wind turbines could be installed. This would be enough to power the equivalent of almost all the homes in the UK (assuming 3.6MW to 5MW turbines).

An Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), produced by Hartley Anderson Ltd, assesses the potential for further development in offshore wind, as well as oil and gas licensing and natural gas storage. The environmental report, the bulk of it, records vital information on bird populations, mammals, plankton and more. Following a twelve week consultation on this report, the Government will propose an "acceptable" level of offshore wind development, as well as offshore oil and gas licensing.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said: "This report provides a real advance in our understanding of the ecology and geology of the UK marine environment so we can continue to ensure that projects like wind farms are built in the most suitable places and that we will also protect the natural environment."

The Government has already proposed increases in the financial incentives to make the UK an attractive place for offshore wind development. Seven wind farms (North Hoyle, Scroby Sands, Kentish Flats, Barrow, Burbo Bank, Lynn and Inner Dowsing) are already operating off the UK coast, five more are being built, nine have been approved and two are in the planning process.

> www.offshore-sea.org.uk
> DECC's offshore wind pages