U.K. lawmakers urge for pause in arctic drilling
LONDON— International governments should seek a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Arctic amid concern an oil spill in the region could cause catastrophic environmental damage, British lawmakers said Thursday.
The Environmental Audit Committee of Britain’s House of Commons urged action to halt oil and gas drilling in the Arctic until new safeguards — including vastly increased financial guarantees and universal standards on disaster response — are put in place.
Legislators on the panel also called for an internationally recognized nature sanctuary to be created to protect at least part of the Arctic from energy exploration.
The United Kingdom is not a member of the eight-member Arctic Council, representing governments of the countries surrounding the polar region, but the report says Britain should lobby the group. Canada is scheduled to become chair of the group for one year starting in April, followed by the U.S.
The council has been considering international regulations for energy development in Arctic waters, as both Canada and the U.S. prepare to resume offshore drilling. The other members of the council are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.
Caroline Lucas, a member of the British parliamentary committee and the U.K.’s only Green Party MP, said the panel’s findings came as “the race to carve up the Arctic is accelerating faster than our regulatory or technical capacity to manage it.”
“The Arctic oil rush is bringing unprecedented risks to the area, and it’s now clear that the consequences of any potential oil spill would be catastrophic,” she said.
Recommendations by the panel are not binding on Britain’s Conservative-led coalition government, and in response the country’s foreign ministry said only that it would consider the proposals.
Experts warned the panel that any blowout in the Arctic at the end of the summer drilling season could be disastrous, as the returning winter ice would likely severely hamper the response.
“We heard compelling evidence that if a blowout occurred just before the dark Arctic winter returned it may not be possible to cap it until the following summer — potentially leaving oil spewing out under the ice for six months or more with devastating consequences for wildlife,” said lawmaker Joan Walley, chairwoman of the committee.
In a report, legislators said that the fact Arctic drilling locations are remote means resources to manage accidents are likely to be difficult to access or unavailable. Because shorelines are sparsely populated, it would also be more difficult to detect evidence of a spill. “The infrastructure to mount a big clean-up operation is simply not in place and conventional oil spill response techniques have not been proven to work in such severe conditions,” Walley said.
Legislators called on Britain to lobby the Arctic Council to craft a universal standard on disaster response.