Royal Dutch Shell is set to begin drilling in the Arctic waters off Alaska beginning next month, assuming the Obama Administrations doesn’t hold off on needed permits at the last-minute. (With President Obama fighting for re-election—and fighting the charge that he’s anti-energy—don’t bet on it.) That has environmentalists extremely unhappy. As global warming—ironically—opens up once-iced over parts of the Arctic waters to drilling rigs, greens worry that a spill in the hostile environment of the far North is as inevitable as it would be devastating. Shell and other oil companies interested in the Arctic argue that they’ll be taking extra precautions in the Arctic, and note that they’ll be drilling shallow, low-pressure wells that are less likely to blow out than the deepwater well that caused BP’s 2010 Gulf oil spill.
But a new report by the NGO Clean Air Task Force (CATF) shows that an oil spill isn’t the only risk that Arctic drilling poses to the environment. Methane and black carbon, two potent greenhouses gases, will likely be emitted in significant amounts if drilling in the Arctic proves as lucrative as many oil companies are hoping for. Exactly how much additional greenhouse gas will be released by the production of Arctic oil isn’t clear—and depends on whether drillers and regulators take steps to reduce the warming side effects of drilling. “It’s ironic that climate change has led to the opening of the Arctic for drilling, but we aren’t paying much attention to the climate change that drilling will help cause,” says Jonathan Banks, senior climate policy advisor for CATF and the author of the report.
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