This is an area comparable to that of Denmark. In order to respond to “the climate crisis”, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would ban any new gas or oil exploitation in a huge area of northern Alaska in the United States. An announcement that comes five months after the US government approved a hydrocarbon project in the same region.
This new measure concerns more than four million hectares, an area comparable to that of Denmark, within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), a vital natural space for populations of grizzly bears, polar bears, caribou and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.
“Protect these precious regions”
“Alaska is home to many of America’s most beautiful natural wonders,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement. “As the climate crisis warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the globe, we have a responsibility to protect these precious regions for centuries to come,” he added.
The Department of the Interior, in charge of federal lands in the United States, added that it had canceled seven operating permits authorized under President Donald Trump in another protected area in northern Alaska. In March, the administration of the Democratic president had been strongly criticized by environmental activists after its decision to authorize a vast oil project by the American giant ConocoPhillips in this same national oil reserve.
A catastrophic project for the climate
The decision announced Wednesday does not call into question this project, called Willow and authorized during the mandate of Donald Trump. Reduced to three drilling zones against the five initially requested by the company, it will cost between 8 and 10 billion dollars and should result in a total indirect emission of the equivalent of 239 million tonnes of CO2.
Environmental associations then denounced a disaster for the climate, and some see Wednesday’s announcement as an attempt to catch up on the part of the Biden administration. The new plan announced Wednesday also prohibits drilling in an area of more than one million hectares in the Beaufort Sea, located north of the northern coast of Alaska, and aid for local indigenous populations.
An economically devastated region
These measures “are illegal, reckless, defy common sense and are the latest evidence of the inconsistency of President Biden’s energy policy”, reacted the Republican Senator from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, in a press release, denouncing a lack of consultation with affected Aboriginal communities.
Democrat Mary Peltola, who represents Alaska in the United States House of Representatives, for her part said she was “deeply frustrated”, accusing the Biden administration of having remained deaf to the demands of the population. Joe Biden also faced opposition from prominent members of local Indigenous communities who lamented the economic impact of the move on a disaster-stricken region.
Coat of arms and plan in favor of the climate
Observers analyze Joe Biden’s announcement as a way for the American president to restore his reputation on climate. During his campaign for the presidency, he promised a freeze on oil exploitation permits, a promise that was not kept. Some point out that legal actions launched by republican states have limited its room for maneuver in this file.
Last year, the Democratic president also passed a huge $400 billion climate investment plan. According to a study, published in July in the journal Science, it would make it possible to reduce American greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 by 43 to 48% compared to 2005, without however allowing the United States to divide its emissions by two by 2030.