Where Oil and Wild Life Collide
President Joe Biden set any US president's most ambitious climate objective during his first months in office: to decrease carbon emissions by more than 50% by 2030. With the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, the Willow Project would constitute a futile misdirection of the climate goals set earlier this month.
President Joe Biden set any US president's most ambitious climate objective during his first months in office: to decrease carbon emissions by more than 50% by 2030. The Biden administration approved the process earlier this month for a contentious Arctic oil project, The Willow Project, allowing drilling to occur in an undeveloped Alaskan tundra region. This expansion of Alaska's Arctic oil development, located within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska - a twenty-three-million-acre region initially designated as the US Navy's emergency oil supply - has ignited strong discussions over several years, navigating through regulatory processes and legal disputes. Although the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed a reduced project footprint, the modifications would still enable the developer, ConocoPhillips, to achieve its intended oil extraction volume.
Over the next thirty years, developing and burning oil from the Willow Project would ultimately pump 180,000 barrels per day reaching 600 million barrels over the project's three-decade operation (Inside Climate News). This process would produce 287 million metric tons of carbon dioxide at a time when the nation sorely needs to transition away from fossil fuels. This amount is the equivalent of one-third of all the coal power plant's annual emissions in the United States.
With the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, the Willow Project would constitute a futile misdirection of the climate goals set earlier this month.
In support of drilling, arguing for reducing the United State's reliance on foreign oil imports and employment opportunities, these untapped oil and gas reserves may help meet the world's energy needs while contributing to economic growth, holding vast, undiscovered oil and gas reserves potentially worth billions. The arctic, however, also has intrinsic value as an untouched region. Environmental economist Tanya O'Garra, while at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, found that the Arctic generates $281 billion annually in services such as fishing, oil, tourism, mineral extraction, and climate stabilization (CNBC).
Considerations for developing oil and gas leases, particularly along the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge, must also include economic uncertainties and practical logistics. Operations under such an arduous and remote environment give rise to high-cost work conditions, especially within the brief window to operate each year when the frozen ground allows access. Scientific research demonstrates increasing costs considering the rapid developments of thawing permafrost and climate change, imposing immediate risks to oil and gas infrastructure, similar to events from the Sagavanirktok River floods in 2019 costing $10 million dollars in repair damage (WWF). Current estimates in the Russian Arctic predict that 29% of oil and gas production facilities can no longer be operated, and nearly 40% of buildings show immediate buckling indications emphasizing the difficulties of infrastructure development resulting from permafrost conditions. Over five hundred kilometers of the Trans-Alaska pipeline are currently at risk of near-surface permafrost thawing by the year 2050, deteriorating and destabilizing environments as well as oil projects.
The Arctic is not a desolate, frozen wilderness but the harbor of many of the planet's most unique ecosystems. The Alaskan Wilderness League reported that the region provides habitats for various migratory birds, brown bears, caribous, polar bears, walruses, and beluga whales. Intrinsically, indigenous communities depending on the area's natural resources for subsistence, who are at the center of the controversy over drilling for oil in the Arctic, are often absent in the discourse. Additionally, playing a crucial role in climate stabilization, the Arctic provides fragile functionality to the planet. In the absence of this service, climate change could result in altered growing seasons, irregular climactic events, droughts, and generally unstable weather patterns. For the Gwich'in people, the Coastal Plain is Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit, the "Sacred Place Where Life Begins" (WWF).
Economic obstacles faced by oil development in the Arctic Refuge are particularly challenging due to the distinct expenses and uncertainties associated with arctic conditions. With the devastating effects on ecosystems, climate, and indigenous communities as well as the threat of messy oil spill clean-ups, the decisions regarding the Arctic must be carefully considered in balance with these competing interests to ensure sustainable use and protection of this critical region for future generations.
Written by Veronica Valenti