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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Leave new oil in the soil in Africa - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...66289

industry petroleum development oil international extractive nigeria transparency curse resource

shared by Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The desire to capture more oil reserves is driving exploration and development of oil and gas fields in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Puntland, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, the Comoros, Seychelles and the coast of Durban in South Africa.
  • The National oil spill detection and response agency (NOSDRA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have identified over 2,000 spill sites that need to be remediated. Some of these spills happened over 40 years ago. The Ebubu spill that occurred in 1970, has not been cleaned up and Shell, the company implicated in the disaster, is vigorously appealing a judgement of a federal high court which ordered it to pay US$40 million compensation as at 2001.[3]
  • Even though Ikiogha is the government bureaucrat in charge of penalising Shell for the spill and signing off on the cleanup, he is also the contractor hired by Shell to do the cleanup… His cleanup operation consists of four shirtless men scooping oil from the surface of the polluted river with Frisbees… he claims that most of the oil had earlier been removed with absorbent foam and blankets.’[5]
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10
       
      Kenneth Feinburg.
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  • The idea of leaving oil in the ground within the Yasuni forest was taken up in far away Ecuador by no less than the government of the country itself and is receiving widespread acceptance.
  • The world’s ecosystem is one and we have merely scratched the surface in understanding the intricate interconnectedness of nature at different levels. It is therefore short sighted to continue the reckless expansion of drilling around the world because in the long run the revenue we may earn today from oil extraction would not be sufficient to adequately return our environment to what it was before extraction when incidents like these occur.
  • We must begin by acknowledging that the sensible use of our ecosystem has the capacity in the long-term to provide much more benefits and revenue than oil can ever provide. We must individually and consciously take up the responsibility of drastically reducing our use of oil and its by-products. We must also set up international tribunals that would try entities and individuals for their role in destroying the ecosystem. But more importantly we must begin to have the consciousness and think along the lines of building capacities within our communities to ensure as much as possible that the role of oil our energy matrix becomes inconsequential by investing more in renewable energy, energy efficiency, better public transportation and small decentralised energy projects.
Arabica Robusta

The World Bank's new energy strategy (Bretton Woods Project) - 0 views

www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-565665

petroleum industry development oil international extractive resource transparency curse world bank renewable energy

shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Based upon the model implemented in England and Wales and in some parts of the United States and Latin America, reforms were geared towards restructuring and privatising state-owned electricity utilities in order to try to improve efficiency through competitive wholesale electricity markets.
  • The impact of reform on poverty reduction also became a cause for concern. Even where private sector participation had occurred, expanding access to non-industrial consumers had been considered unprofitable. Stark figures for household access levels, such as 2 billion people without access to electricity worldwide, were difficult to ignoreii.
  • interestingly, PSMPs tend to emphasise use of large-scale generation projects to exploit hydro and thermal potential and regional integration of grid networks. Whilst a stable grid serving the entire population might be an attractive long-term goal, rarely has such distributional equity been achieved. More often than not, grid extension programmes have failed to reach the rural poor because they have not always proven to be the most cost-effective means of expanding access to rural areas, mainly due to low population density and greater technical losses as transmission networks increase.
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  • the mobilisation of private investment is still very important and Bank funding can play a key role in leveraging it. Private investors look to fund ‘bankable’ projects – projects with low risk and quick returns. The result is a bias toward established fossil fuel technologies. Given this bias, when the Bank aims to leverage private sector investment, its funds should be directed towards making low-carbon energy technologies commercially available and competitive.
Arabica Robusta

ECUADOR: Fate of Untapped Oil Hangs in the Balance - of Trust Fund - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

ipsnews.net/news.asp

shared by Arabica Robusta on 17 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • The initiative for not extracting the oil was originally proposed 20 years ago by Fundación Natura, the largest environmental organisation in Ecuador, and has since been supported by a number of environmental and indigenous groups defending the Yasuní National Park and its buffer zone, where the oilfields are located.
  • But there are strong supporters for drilling, like the deputy minister of non-renewable natural resources and former manager of the state oil firm Petroecuador, Carlos Pareja, and President Correa himself has talked extensively about "Plan B".
  • Meanwhile, the German government said it will not support the Yasuní-ITT initiative, because the precedent might be imitated by other countries. The announcement came as very bad news for the initiative.
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  • Correa cheerfully replied that he would continue to talk about "Plan B" because his main concern is the future of Ecuadorians, and if international cooperation is not forthcoming he will have to authorise it. In the circumstances, it appears increasingly unlikely that the oil under the Yasuní nature reserve will remain untapped for long.
  • The proposal is for Ecuador to forego extracting the oil, in return for the international community contributing 50 percent of the cost of the greenhouse gas emissions that would be saved by not extracting and burning the oil – at least 3.6 billion dollars.
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