<
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/02/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-drilling/>
"Three major oil companies have given up opportunities to explore for oil in
Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, after the industry and Republican
politicians have spent decades working to gain access to the sensitive region.
Regenerate Alaska, a division of an Australian firm and the only oil company to
directly acquire a tract on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million-acre coastal plain,
canceled its lease last month, after Chevron and Hilcorp, two other major oil
companies, had also jettisoned their claims.
The exits make it far less likely that drilling will take place soon in a vast,
unspoiled landscape that has achieved iconic status among environmentalists and
has been fought over for half a century. An Anchorage real estate investor and
the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority still hold
leases there, but industry analysts say they lack the financial power and
expertise to develop the remote area on their own.
The Anchorage Daily News first reported the three firms’ decision to pull out
of the refuge.
While Republicans enacted legislation in 2017 mandating two major lease sales
in the refuge by the end of 2024, a coalition of Indigenous rights and
environmental groups has launched a campaign to pressure corporations against
investing in any developments there. The 20 million-acre preserve hosts
hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl each year and provides
critical habitat for the Southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears.
“This is positive news for the climate and the human rights of Indigenous
people whose survival depends on a healthy, thriving calving ground for the
Porcupine Caribou Herd, and further proves that the oil industry recognizes
drilling on sacred lands is bad business,” the Wilderness Society’s Alaska
state director, Karlin Itchoak, said in a statement.
Five major U.S. banks — Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan
Chase and Wells Fargo — and a growing list of insurance companies have stopped
giving financing for the Arctic oil business."
Via Future Crunch Jun 20, 2022:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/human-rights-in-spain-solar-in-vietnam-and-monarch-butterflies-in-north-america/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
