Since the 70s, oil companies around the world have dreamed of exploiting oil off the Arctic shores. With the improvement of renewable energies and the growing development in this sector, it is not necessary to continue looking for oil to supply the world's energy demand.
In the current scenario, we are trying to find the opposite: to lead the world into an era of decarbonization to avoid the effects of climate change and end pollution. However, US President Donald Trump has made a legislative proposal to allow oil drilling in the RAlaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), led by Lisa Murkowski, the chair of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy. Have we taken steps back on our energy development?
Arctic exploitation
This project, whose initiative comes from the president, could allow the auction of two licenses for drill 1.600 square kilometers of this coastal area, washed by the Arctic Ocean and in the remote northeast of Alaska, to raise more than 1.000 billion dollars. These licenses would be given for this next decade.
Donald Trump is leading the United States against the energy progress that other countries are achieving. Thanks to the Paris Agreement, renewable energies are becoming more and more present in all markets and are meeting more and more energy demand, contributing to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Alaska Senator Says Opening Small Part of ANWR Zone you can create thousands of good jobs and keep the energy at affordable prices for families and businesses with fewer resources. In addition, he affirms that the energy supply will be maintained in a more firm way and will reduce the federal deficit, while strengthening national security.
It is estimated, according to the calculations of the US Geological Survey, that they exist in that area about 12.000 million barrels of recoverable oil.
Biodiversity will be affected
The US federal government had already allowed, with significant restrictions, oil activities on the northwest coast of Alaska, but had never touched the ANWR, considered an environmental treasure for its biodiversity, with thousands of birds, polar bears and reindeer.
In addition, in this area there are tribes and indigenous populations that depend solely on hunting these reindeer and whales, so the exploitation of this oil could destroy them.
For all defenders of the environment, both those who belong to environmental associations and those who do not, this is all nonsense against the energy progress that is being achieved in the rest of the world. Leading this planet to an energy transition based on renewable energies should be the priority and not exploiting more fossil fuels again, affecting a treasure such as the biodiversity of the ANWR area.
In 1995, President Clinton vetoed a similar law oil exploitation in the Arctic and, in 2005, another attempt was also denied by a narrow margin in the Senate. It must be borne in mind that, if a refuge with such environmental value as the Arctic is not safe from destructive activities like this, no protected natural area can be at any time.
In addition to protecting biodiversity, this site is vitally important to the protection of Alaska's natural heritage and indigenous culture.
Another approved project
At the same time as the opening of the ANWR to the oil sector, the Office of Safety and Environmental Protection of your Government this week granted the green light to the company italy Eni SpA to drill an exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea, also in the Arctic, between Alaska and Canada, and next to the wildlife refuge.
As can be seen, nothing can stop the decisions against the conservation of the environment that Donald Trump is making, which, in the future, will be able to see the consequences of them.