{"id":200,"date":"2015-05-27T14:20:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T14:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcticincontext.com\/?p=200"},"modified":"2021-07-11T23:27:19","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T23:27:19","slug":"americas-two-faced-approach-in-the-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/2015\/05\/27\/americas-two-faced-approach-in-the-arctic\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s Two Faced Approach in the Arctic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published by Cryopolitics<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Mia Bennett<\/b><\/p>\n

At the Arctic Council ministerial in Iqaluit, Canada on April 25, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry waxed poetic about the prospects for clean energy in the Arctic. He remarked<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

My friends, clean energy is the solution to climate change. If we got the whole world to embrace clean energy choices rapidly, we can meet our two-degree target. But the window\u2019s closing. The extraordinary thing is all of the technologies we need \u2013 whether it\u2019s wind or solar or hydro or whatever, they\u2019re all there. It\u2019s the economics that don\u2019t drive people to make the choice, so we\u2019ve got a lot of countries putting on coal-fired burning right now, and the coal-fired burning they\u2019re putting on will totally erase the gains that a lot of other countries are making at the same time.<\/p>\n

So we have to have a serious conversation about this, which is why President Obama has been pushing our national program so hard, and why we are so focused on this. Clean energy is the solution to climate change. It also happens to be the world\u2019s biggest market. It will make many people rich. Enormous numbers of jobs will be created. Environmental responsibility can be lived up to. People\u2019s health will be better. And security will be greater for a lot of countries that today are blackmailed by one source of fuel of one kind or another.<\/p>\n

So many benefits. How many public choices do you get to make where there are so many plusses on the good side versus the negatives on the downside? Very few.<\/p>\n

So it is essential, especially in the Arctic, to providing affordable, reliable energy that is needed here. We got to find the ways to do it. During our chairmanship, we\u2019re going to examine every chance for greater circumpolar collaboration to develop renewable energy and promote energy efficiency in Arctic communities.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Despite Kerry\u2019s statement that the U.S. would promote renewable energy\u00a0in the Arctic, the first major choice that the U.S. has made as Arctic Council chair has been to conditionally approve Shell\u2019s exploratory drilling plans in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska this summer. This is a clear about-face from the climate-change focused agenda Kerry\u00a0said the U.S. would pursue as chair of the Arctic Council.<\/p>\n

During\u00a0a press conference<\/a> at Camp David yesterday, President Barack Obama defended the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management\u2019s decision. After Michael Viqueira, the White House correspondent for Al-Jazeera, asked whether it is \u201creally worth the risk to drill in such a delicate ecosystem,\u201d Obama responded:<\/p>\n

\n

With respect to the situation in the Arctic, I think it\u2019s fair to say that I know a little something about the risks of offshore drilling given what happened in the Gulf very early in my presidency. And so nobody is more mindful of the risks involved and the dangers. That\u2019s why, despite the fact that Shell had put in an application for exploration in this region several years ago, we delayed it for a very lengthy period of time until they could provide us with the kinds of assurances that we have not seen before, taking account of the extraordinary challenges if, in fact, there was a leak that far north and in that kind of an environment, which would be much more difficult to deal with than in the Gulf. Based on those very high standards, Shell had to go back to the drawing board, revamp its approach, and the experts at this point have concluded that they have met those standards.<\/p>\n

But keep in mind that my approach when it comes to fracking, drilling, U.S. energy production of oil or natural gas has remained consistent throughout:\u00a0 I believe that we are going to have to transition off of fossil fuels as a planet in order to prevent climate change. I am working internationally to reduce our carbon emissions and to replace over time fossil fuels with clean energies.<\/p>\n

\n

Obviously, we start at home with all the work that we\u2019ve done to, for example, double the use of clean energy.\u00a0 But I think that it is important also to recognize that that is going to be a transition process. In the meantime, we are going to continue to be using fossil fuels.\u00a0 And when it can be done safely and appropriately, U.S. production of oil and natural gas is important.<\/p>\n

I would rather us \u2014 with all the safeguards and standards that we have \u2014 be producing our oil and gas, rather than importing it, which is bad for our people, but is also potentially purchased from places that have much lower environmental standards than we do.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The idea that importing oil is \u201cbad for our people\u201d is populist pandering. If it\u2019s really so bad, why has the U.S. continued to increase oil imports from Canada<\/a>, the nation\u2019s biggest oil supplier (not the Middle East, contrary to popular opinion)? Furthermore, in an article<\/a> for Foreign Affairs, energy expert Daniel Yergin suggests that building a global network of trade and investment would be better for global energy security than a \u201cmercantilist, state-to-state approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Obama to justify his decision by discussing the benefits of oil drilling for Alaskans and the Alaskan economy would be one thing. But for him to state that he\u2019s going ahead with drilling in the Arctic because \u201cimporting oil is bad for our people\u201d is sheer dishonesty. In other words, the president\u00a0appears willing to put the Chukchi Sea at risk because of concerns about dependency on foreign oil. If Obama were really so concerned about imports, however,\u00a0why is he advocating enormous free-trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the\u00a0Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership?<\/p>\n

One other strategy to spur the reduction of\u00a0oil imports, if they are in fact \u201cbad for our people,\u201d might be to enact measures to decrease domestic oil consumption. Importing oil or reducing consumption, however, might negatively affect the Alaskan economy, as it would make\u00a0the state\u2019s\u00a0resources less desirable to develop. Thus, many people in Alaska are happy with BOEM\u2019s decision.\u00a0If Shell hits the black stuff in any of the six exploratory wells it is planning to drill this summer, this could bode well for future royalties paid to the Alaskan state treasury. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) tweeted:<\/p>\n

\"America\u2019s<\/p>\n

Rather than being a leader, however, the U.S. is simply following in the footsteps of Russia and Norway \u2013 two countries that have already begun or are making progress towards Arctic offshore drilling. The decision in favor of Shell\u2019s plans also puts Alaska on the pathway of dependency on oil extraction for many more years to come instead of turning it into a leader in more cutting-edge\u00a0industries like clean energy.<\/p>\n

So whether or not\u00a0you think drilling offshore Alaska is a good strategy for the nation or the state, BOEM\u2019s decision does not make the U.S. look like a leader. Instead, the Obama administration seems to be following a time-tested strategy of rinse and repeat. Drill for oil, clean up the spill (ExxonValdez in 1989, Deepwater Horizon in 2010), start drilling again. BOEM\u2019s\u00a0decision also makes the U.S. appear\u00a0hypocritical as Arctic Council chair given all its talk about the environment and combating climate change in Iqaluit.\u00a0Contrast this with the Russian Minister for Natural Resources, who wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday<\/a>, \u201cThere is no alternative to the fields on the shelf.\u201d He may not say what environmentalists want to hear, but at least he can\u2019t be accused of going back on his word.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Mia Bennett is a Ph.D. student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at UCLA and runs the Cryopolitics blog<\/a>. She received her M.Phil. in Polar Studies from Cambridge University.<\/em><\/p>\n

[Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center\/CC License]<\/a><\/p>\n

This article first appeared on the World Policy Institute website.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published by Cryopolitics. By Mia Bennett At the Arctic Council ministerial in Iqaluit, Canada on April 25, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry waxed poetic about the prospects for clean energy in the Arctic. He remarked: My friends, clean energy is the solution to climate change. If we got the whole<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,13],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-energy-and-mining","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1792,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/1792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}