Greenpeace and the Arctic Drilling.

[martalunde68]

On August, 17, a group of Greenpeace activists (a total of 35) from the ship Arctic Sunrise entered the exclusion zone of Statoil's oil rig Songa Enabler in the Barents Sea to protest against oil production in the Arctic area. The protestors were trying to draw attention of the Norwegian government to the potential damage that oil and gas production at Barents Sea can do to the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

The police ordered the protestors to leave the security zone, as Norwegian state-owned oil company Statoil had permission to drill in the area. When Greenpeace activists refused to leave, the police requested the Coast Guard to take action. Shortly afterwards, the Coast Guard boarded the Arctic Sunrise , arrested its crew and towed vessel to the Tromso.

Later, on August 21, Greenpeace activists were released. So, the fight against the Arctic drilling will continue. The next battle will take place in the Oslo District Court in November where a climate lawsuit against the Norwegian government for handing out new Arctic oil licenses will be heard.

[Mr.Far]

I, generally, stand for Greenpeace's ideas but don't you think that such methods of countering the Arctic oil drilling are quite ineffective?

Let's take the case of boarding of the Russian oil rig Prirazlomnaya by Greenpeace activists in 2012. Do you remember what the result of such actions was? I'll tell you - not any. The oil rig has still been producting oil.

Knowing the Russians' negligence to the environment this must be concern not the Norway's actions which meet the highest green standards.

[martalunde68]

It seems to me that Norway's image as a green frontrunner is questionable with such an ambiguous environment policy.

By the way, I've Googled, that Oslo licensed state-owned Statoil for oil extraction in Korpfjell in June 2016. And all this happened just ten days before Norway signed the Paris climate agreement. So, on the one hand, the Norway is trying to play active role in the global efforts to tackle climate change, whilst planning to ramp up oil and gas production in the Arctic, on the other. The research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/10/norways-push-for-arctic-oil-and-gas-threatens-paris-climate-goals-study says 12 gigatonnes of carbon could be added by exploration sites in the Barents Sea and elsewhere over the next 50 years, which is 1.5 times more than the Norwegian fields currently being tapped or under construction.

On the contrary, Russia's disregard of ecological norms in the Arctic is mostly a myth. The Russia is more than anyone else interested in keeping clean its 'backyard', which the Arctic historically is. For example, in 2012-2015 Russian specialists recycled more than 40.000 tons of waste and recultivated about 494 acres of land in the region. In 2017 the Russia will spend $28 mln on ecological cleanup in the region; at least 8000 tons of industrial waste and scrap metal have to be removed from the Arctic islands.