Biden's Climate Pledge Broken: Approval of the Willow Project, Alaska | The Student Newspaper

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)

President Biden, the US's first supposed ‘climate president’, promised ‘no more drilling on federal lands, period’ during his Presidential campaign and his administration set a goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. However, on 13^th March the Biden administration undermined this climate agenda by approving the $8 billion ConocoPhillips Willow Project in Alaska, the largest oil and gas project currently proposed in the US as a way to boost the state’s economy.  At its peak, it is estimated to produce up to 180,000 barrels of crude oil a day across three different sites and 200 oil wells within the 23 million-acre Nation Petroleum Reserve. 

 

The Willow Project will create one of the biggest ‘carbon bombs’ in the United States, where it is expected to create around 260 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over its 30-year lifespan, long past the point where climate scientists have warned that there must be an international transition away from fossil fuels. This will have detrimental environmental impacts both in the United States and globally, and it has been described as ‘climate suicide’ by Sovereign Inupiat from an Indigenous Alaskan organisation, Living Artic. Alaska is dominated by highly vulnerable, frozen environments and is at the forefront of climate breakdown largely due to the burning of fossil fuels and oil spills. The artic is heating four times as quickly as the rest of the world, leading to the melting of permafrost causing not only the ground to sink and dramatic changes to the ecosystem but also the release of carbon dioxide and methane from the microbes within the lawed ground, further contributing to global warming. The approval of such an environmentally damaging development is highly irresponsible with time to limit global warming quickly running out and it undermines efforts put in by other states and corporations to reduce their climate impact.

 

Indigenous residents of Nuiqsut, the closest Alaskan Native community to the proposed site that is already surrounded by oil developments, have spoken about the environmental and health issues caused by oil drilling on previously indigenous-owned land. Oil flares, fumes, and toxic air pollution all directly cause respiratory illnesses and other diseases in the community, highlighting how oil drilling in Alaska is a form of environmental racism. Food insecurity is prevalent within these communities as hunting resources that are depended on have been impacted by the oil industry. The Willow Project will sit alongside other oil projects on the birthing grounds of the Teshekpuk caribou herd impacting the number of caribou born each year and their health; indigenous communities have historically relied on hunting caribou as a main form of sustenance and have already been affected by fewer numbers and more malnourished caribou. Indigenous communities are also at great risk of losing their homes and livelihoods due to environmental devastations, rising sea levels, and increased coastal erosion due to global warming.