Biden approves the “Willow” oil project in northern Alaska, several American media reports. The project is planned to produce between 570 and 614 million barrels of oil over the next 30 years. This comes two days after the announcement that a large area in Alaska will be protected, which basically means that oil exploration will be limited. Willow has been going through an approval process for months, while online activism and opposition has grown. The Biden administration wants to protect parts of Alaska from oil exploration, but at the same time approve the large Willow project. Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP Three drilling fields instead of five Willow has a price tag of between 8 and 10 billion dollars. Opponents had hoped that Biden would scrap the project, which they believe is incompatible with the president’s ambitious climate goals. Instead, Biden gives the oil company ConocoPhillips permission to develop three drilling fields, and not five, as the company proposed. The company can start construction within a few days, writes The Washington Post. The critics describe the project as a “carbon bomb” which is contrary to Biden’s election campaign promises to limit new oil and gas projects. Photo: Bureau of Land Management / Flickr Indigenous people threatened The area around the village of Nuiqsut (pronounced nu-ik-sut) is one of the fastest-warming places on Earth. The village with 400 inhabitants is closest to the planned oil fields. The average temperature here has risen by 4 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. That’s three times more than the global average, according to the Washington Post’s analysis of temperature data. Reindeer herding is one of the industries of the local population in Nuiqsut. The project could create thousands of new jobs, but has met with massive opposition. Not just in the US, but worldwide. Photo: Bureau of Land Management / Flickr In addition to large emissions from oil extraction, the resistance movement fears that Willow will threaten the rights and living conditions of indigenous peoples, and affect an already vulnerable nature with red-listed species in the Western Arctic. The hashtag #StopWillow is now one of the biggest trends on TikTok, with over 150 million views on the app. Partially protected The protection of parts of Alaska will affect oil exploration. It will be prohibited to search for oil in just over 12,000 square kilometers of the Arctic Ocean, which in practice will mean that the Americans cannot search in the sea. The rest of the protected area is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), in the north of the state. Several ecologically vulnerable areas that are habitat for thousands of caribou, North American wild reindeer and shorebirds are also being protected, writes the Washington Post. Could destroy nature The plans for Willow, however, include hundreds of wells and hundreds of kilometers of pipelines, in addition to airstrips, roads and processing plants. Problems with oil spills and leaks can have catastrophic consequences for already vulnerable ecosystems, according to the environmental movement. The indigenous people have protested outside the White House and sent an open letter about how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is treating them in the matter. At the same time, there are more among the Iñupiat people who support the project, which they say will lead to much-needed jobs and big money. The Trans-Alaska oil pipeline crosses all of Alaska from north to south, and all the way to the North Slope. Biden allows the oil company to build three drilling fields instead of five, as ConocoPhillips proposed, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). Photo: Arthur T. LaBar / Flickr Incompatible with ambitious climate goals The approval of the project highlights the challenge President Biden faces when it comes to delivering on strong climate promises. The main message of the critics is that Willow goes against Biden’s promises to make the United States a climate-leading nation when they re-entered the Paris Agreement. – It is as far from responsible climate management as it is possible to get, to approve new, destructive oil projects in vulnerable Arctic areas, just because you are protecting some other areas in the Arctic, says climate advisor Aled Dilwyn Fisher of the Nature Conservation Association. – The Willow project will be approved a week before the UN climate panel’s synthesis report, which will state that the world has no room for new oil and gas projects if politicians want to achieve the climate goals they themselves have adopted, he says. The village of Nuiqsut on the North Slope in Alaska. The Willow project is referred to as a “climate bomb” that threatens the rights of indigenous peoples and nature in the Western Arctic. Photo: Paxson Woelber / Flickr Over 3 million people signed one of the biggest campaigns against the project, and one million letters have been sent to the White House, according to US media. – That the USA as well as Norway promote new climate bombs in the Arctic, in 2023, when the world must halve emissions by 2030, makes absolutely no sense, says Fisher. In recent weeks, information about and rebellion against the Willow project has spread like wildfire on social media. Photo: TikTok
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Biden approves the controversial Willow oil project – news – Klima
