The pro-shale gas steam roller continues
Helen Crow RSPB Climate Change Policy Officer
This cartoon sums up how I feel about shale gas in the UK. Yes, it’s one option but why on earth would you go to all that effort when there are more obvious and less planet-killing alternatives available?
Aside from the tax breaks already announced, the new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil, and a new licensing round, the Queen’s Speech last week – which officially opened the new session of Parliament – included measures to bring forward new legislation to change access rights in the UK. This would involve giving shale gas companies the automatic right to drill beneath our land. Now I don’t know about you but to me that seems like several steps too far in terms of weakening our ability to withstand the pressure for shale gas development near our homes and under the places we care about.
The longer I work on shale gas the more frustrated and disbelieving I am of the steps that are being taken to ease the way for the shale gas industry. I find it hard to fathom why seemingly limitless effort is being poured into helping the fledgling shale gas industry at a time when we’re meant to be making serious inroads into decarbonising UK electricity supply. Meanwhile Government is refusing planning consent to more onshore wind farms than ever before, the subsidies for onshore wind and solar power are being cut, and energy savings continue to receive far too little support.
We at the RSPB are asking Government not to license protected areas in the new oil and gas licensing round – not only because they play a crucial role in tackling the declining state of nature in the UK, but because they are vital for people’s health and well-being. Our protected nature areas support local jobs and tourism, help provide clean air and water and give us space for relaxation and recreation. It’s easy to add your voice to our campaign.
The South Downs is one of the areas being considered for the new licensing round
If you want to go a step further, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have a petition calling on local MPs not to support new legislation to change access rights. If you haven’t seen it already then there’s also a brilliant photo there of when they ‘fracked’ David Cameron’s house earlier in the week!
Yeah, absolutely. A few of the bigger players like Centrica and Total are starting to come on board but it's still predominantly the smaller companies. That was one of our major concerns when we were writing 'Are we fit to frack?'. These companies don't have the track record or financial backing of the bigger players in the oil and gas industry. We think it's really important that sites are independently monitored, rather than relying on operator self-monitoring, and that there should be up front financial guarantees to pay for remediation in the case of a pollution incident.
A fact that is also of concern about all this is that the major oil companies like Shell and BP are not significantly involved in this licensing. Whatever one thinks they do tend to be more thorough and much more experienced than the smaller companies. I gather that the larger companies are not involved because they consider the economics doubtful and the environmental risks too high.
redkite