Download the full paper Short and Szolucha 2017

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The report and government’s response available here — <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/committee-on-climate-change-report-and-government-response-on-the-compatibility-of-uk-onshore-petroleum-with-meeting-the-uks-carbon-budgets>

On a quick reading it’s possible to say that the CCC have completely ducked the issue of fugitive methane emissions. Yes, they refer to some recent research studies on the issue, but as part of their calculations they’re still using the data from “reduced emissions completion” studies in the USA.

Recent peer-reviewed studies on this data has shown that it is flawed because the methane sensor used doesn’t work under all test conditions — and the data from the Allen study, the standard data source used, demonstrates that it was not sensing high methane releases for some of the time.

The problem with the sensor has been known publicly for about 12 months, and within the industry for much longer. In fact the failure of the measuring equipment goes some way to explaining the difference between “inventory analysis”

studies used by the industry, and the recent studies of actual gas concentrations which discovered high methane emissions.

All-in-all then, the report is a move on from the blinkered approach of DECC’s 2013 Mackay-Stone report. It does have some interesting conclusions — such as the fact that current oil and gas regulation standard in Britain can’t meet the emisisons ceiling necessary to meet the UK’s carbon budget.

However, due to its failure to reflect the most recent studies on fugitive emissions form the US, its analysis is deeply flawed. It relies upon data which is know to be significantly in error from actual emissions in order to arrive at its conclusions.

Therefore the CCC’s report fails to adequately identify the hazards to the climate from unconventional oil and gas exploitation in Britain.

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SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

JENNY JONES BARONESS JONES OF MOULSECOOMB
MATT FOOT SOLICITOR, BIRNBERG PEIRCE & PARTNERS
DR JOANNA GILMORE UNIVERSITY OF YORK
DR HELEN MONK LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY
DR WILL JACKSON LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY

ROOM 3A, HOUSE OF LORDS,
LONDON, SW1A 0PW

PLEASE ALLOW ENOUGH TIME TO CLEAR SECURITY

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Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith (Australia):  Dr Lloyd-Smith is a Senior Advisor at IPEN (International POPs Elimination Network) and for the National Toxics Network (NTN) Inc, a community based network working to ensure a toxic-free future for all.  NTN was formed in 1993 and has grown as a national network giving a voice to community and environmental organisations across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Dr Lloyd-Smith will discuss the latest evidence against underground coal gasification (UCG).  Mariann will address the pollution record of the three pilot UCG projects undertaken in Australia and talk about  the litany of disasters which  has seen over 300 km²  quarantined,  affecting families and farmers alike. She will also comment on the investigations underpinning the current Queensland government’s  legal  case against Linc Energy 

On 15th October 2015, Mariann presented on the impacts of Underground Coal Gasification at the Extreme Energy Initiative (EEI), Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Watch the podcast  here

A longer version with full Q and A will be available next week….

The post Extreme Energy: a message from down under appeared first on Extreme Energy Initiative.

Senate House, Malet Street, London  – Room 243

Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith (Australia):  Dr Lloyd-Smith is a Senior Advisor at IPEN (International POPs Elimination Network) and for the National Toxics Network (NTN) Inc, a community based network working to ensure a toxic-free future for all.  NTN was formed in 1993 and has grown as a national network giving a voice to community and environmental organisations across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Dr Lloyd-Smith will discuss the latest evidence against underground coal gasification (UCG).  Mariann will address the pollution record of the three pilot UCG projects undertaken in Australia and talk about  the litany of disasters which  has seen over 300 km²  quarantined,  affecting families and farmers alike. She will also comment on the investigations underpinning the current Queensland government’s  legal  case against Linc Energy  and its UCG  project, costing the taxpayer $6.5 million plus.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dr-mariann-lloyd-smith-latest-evidence-against-underground-coal-gasification-ucg-tickets-18976616571

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It was announced today (23rd July 2015) that a coalition of human rights lawyers and academics has been granted an opportunity to put fracking on trial at hearings to be held by The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) in the UK and the US.

The PPT will hold a session on hydraulic fracturing and other unconventional fossil fuel extraction processes after an application was made by three groups: the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment (GNHRE), the Environment and Human Rights Advisory (EHRA) and the Human Rights Consortium (HRC). The PPT is an international opinion tribunal, independent of any state authority. It examines cases regarding violations of human rights and the rights of peoples.

The extreme energy process of ‘fracking’ has taken place around the world in spite of powerful public opposition and with large numbers of citizens claiming that their human rights have been completely disregarded by the corporations involved and by the public officials who are meant to protect and represent the public. The PPT on fracking will examine such allegations in an “even handed and judicial way” and will consider the indictment of nation states, rather than the industry itself, because it is these states, and not the fracking companies, who bear a direct legal responsibility to human rights law.

The human rights dimensions of the full range of oft cited impacts will be examined: the health of human and non-human animals, environmental, climatic, seismic, hydrologic and economic impacts – as well as those on local physical and social infrastructures. Testimony is invited from witnesses all over the world – some of whom may also wish to hold preliminary mini-tribunals in their own countries. Evidence and findings from those early tribunals can then be submitted to the later plenary hearings in the US and UK which, in turn, will play an important role in laying down an informal but highly expert precedent, with potential for future use in national and international courts of law.

At the hearings, between five and seven jurists of high standing in international human rights law will judge whether sufficient evidence exists to indict certain States on charges of “failing to adequately uphold universal human rights as a result of allowing unconventional oil and gas extraction in their jurisdictions.”

Submitted evidence for these hearings will include personal witness narratives, expert testimony on the practices and impacts of fracking, findings from preliminary hearings in other countries, peer reviewed research, reports from preparatory academic round tables, Human Rights Impact Assessments and other forms of evidence.

Prof Anna Grear, Director of GNHRE in London, said “The PPT will play a unique and vitally important role in presenting and rehearsing testimony, arguments and law to lay down an informal but highly expert precedent, with potential for future use in national and international courts of law. The PPT will also educate a wide range of parties and the general public about the human rights dimensions of fracking. This really is a Peoples’ tribunal. It belongs to communities and individuals from all over the world and it aims to produce a highly influential, legally literate and serious judgement of the issues by some of the world’s finest legal minds as a trail blazing example for future legal actions, when and where appropriate.’’

Anyone wanting more information should go to www.tribunalonfracking.org where there are details of how to submit testimony, organise smaller national pre-PPT initiatives and help with the crowd funding of costs.
Hearings are scheduled for March of 2017 in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

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‘Problematic Planning Officer Report: ‘Appendix 17 Public Health’
[Planning applications by Cuadrilla Bowland Limited to drill at Preston New Road no.
LCC/2014/0096 and Roseacre Wood no. LCC/2014/0101]

Dr Damien Short
Reader in Human Rights, University of London
22nd June 2015

I am a university lecturer and researcher on human rights and have to date given two presentations on the human rights impacts of the above listed applications to the Planning Committee. Human rights are concerned with guaranteeing a ‘minimally good life’ for all, and as such health impacts are of vital concern when considering new developments and the public interest.

As the UK government is a signatory to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Aarhus Convention, it is duty bound to ” … to ensure that officials and authorities assist and provide guidance to the public in seeking access to information, in facilitating participation in decision-making and in seeking access to justice in environmental matters.” That guidance must be impartial and evidence based.

Given these obligations, I wish to raise serious concerns over the evaluation of likely health impacts of the above applications in the reports of the Planning Officer – in particular ‘PNR/RW Appendix 17 Public Health.’

1) The Planning officer (PO) implicitly criticises those reports that raise serious concerns over the likely health impacts while uncritically accepting the more favourable Public Health England (PHE) report, which raises concerns over impartial evidence based decision making: e.g. the PO writes:

‘The Medact report has not produced new epidemiological research’

but neither did Public Health England – as the PO is surely aware, it was a ‘Review’. Indeed, both reports are reviews of existing academic literature. The difference between them is that Medact study’s conclusions actually flowed from the evidence they considered. Which is why an editorial in the British Medical Journal described PHE’s report as

‘a leap of faith unsubstantiated by scientific evidence, its authors suggest that many of the environmental and public health problems experienced in the US would probably not apply to the UK. Unfortunately, the conclusion that shale gas operations present a low risk to public health is not substantiated by the literature.’
(http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g2728 )

This is because PHE quite incredibly “rejected” fifty papers in chapter 13 of its review, which included some of the latest research highly critical of the environmental impacts of unconventional oil and gas development.

2) the PO’s report also doesn’t mention the recent New York State Department of Health report on High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing (HVHF), which produced conclusions similar to Medact but contrary to PHE’s reading of the literature it selected:

‘it is clear from the existing literature and experience that HVHF activity has resulted in environmental impacts that are potentially adverse to public health. Until the science provides sufficient information to determine the level of risk to public health from HVHF and whether the risks can be adequately managed, HVHF should not proceed in New York State.

See New York State Department of Health, ‘A Public Health Review of High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing for Shale Gas Development’, https://www.health.ny.gov/press/reports/docs/high_volume_hydraulic_fracturing.pdf.

3) By not clearly identifying a full range of sources of risk, the PO’s report, along with PHE’s, fail to evaluate unconventional oil and gas as an inter-related system; and instead tries to differentiate exploration from production.
As Mobbs (2014) points out ‘This approach misunderstands the basic application of The Precautionary Principle, which is at the root the European environmental law. Put simply, going by the available evidence, exploratory drilling is an unnecessary risk at this time.
The tolerability of risk from exploratory drilling is codependent, not independent of the tolerability of risk from production operations. If we apply the precautionary approach then arguably the demonstrable impacts of unconventional oil and gas production are unacceptable due to the lack of evidence to prove their safety.
As outlined by PHE, exploration does have lower risk, but those risks are not “zero”. If it cannot be demonstrated that unconventional oil and gas production can take place without causing harm to the environment and human health, then production cannot be permitted. If production cannot be permitted because of its innate risks, then exploration cannot be permitted because it presents a positive risk to the environment which is currently unnecessary.’
(See the detailed critique by independent environmental consultant Paul Mobbs – available here http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/ecolonomics/2014/ecolonomics_15-extreme_energy_and_public_health.shtml )

Sincerely,
Dr Damien Short,
Human Rights Consortium,
School of Advanced Study,
University of London
Damien.short@sas.ac.uk

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Abstract

This paper explores the potential human rights impacts of the ‘extreme energy’ process, specifically focusing on the production of shale gas, coal-bed methane (CBM), and ‘tight oil’, known colloquially as ‘fracking’. The paper locates the discussion within a broader context of resource depletion, the ‘limits to growth’, and the process of extreme energy itself. Utilising recent secondary data from the United States and Australia, combined with the preliminary findings of our ethnographic fieldwork in the United Kingdom, the paper outlines a prima facie case for investigating ‘fracking’ development through a human rights lens. Indeed, based on considerable emerging evidence we argue that ‘fracking’ development poses a significant risk to a range of key human rights and should thus form the subject of a multitude of comprehensive, interdisciplinary, Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs) as a matter of urgency. Finally, given the close relationships between government and extractive industries, we argue that these impact assessments must do more than bolster Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) statements and should be truly independent of either government or industry influence.

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Read full article here

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