Energy crisis

For more than six decades, Alaska’s North Slope has been a focus of intense controversy over oil development and wilderness protection, with no end in sight. Willow field, a 600-million-barrel, US$8 billion oil project recently approved by the Biden administration – to the outrage of environmental and climate activists – is the latest chapter in that long saga. To understand why President Joe Biden allowed the project, despite vowing “no more drilling on federal lands, period” during his campaign for president, some historical background is necessary, along with a closer look at the ways domestic and international fears are complicating any decision for or against future oil development on the North Slope. More than just Willow The Willow project lies within a vast, 23 million-acre area known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A. This was one of four such reserves set aside in the early 1900s to guarantee a supply of oil for the U.S....

Russia’s war on Ukraine has cast a shadow over this week’s meetings of world leaders at the G-20 summit in Bali and the United Nations climate change conference in Egypt. The war has dramatically disrupted energy markets the world over, leaving many countries vulnerable to price spikes amid supply shortages. Europe, worried about keeping the heat on through winter, is outbidding poor countries for natural gas, even paying premiums to reroute tanker ships after Russia cut off most of its usual natural gas supply. Some countries are restarting coal-fired power plants. Others are looking for ways to expand fossil fuel production, including new projects in Africa. These actions are a long way from the countries’ pledges just a year ago to rein in fossil fuels, and they’re likely to further increase greenhouse gas emissions, at least temporarily. But will the war and the economic turmoil prevent the world from meeting the Paris climate agreement’s lon...