Greenpeace hijacks oil-drilling barge in Arctic

By Anna Blackden

Washington, DC, Aug. 8 (IPS)— Greenpeace activists have hijacked a large oil exploration barge in Alaska, preventing it from delivering drilling equipment to the Arctic Ocean’s first offshore oil project.

The environmental group says it will occupy the barge for as long as possible, to push demands that oil-giant British Petroleum Amoco (BP Amoco) cancel the 450 million dollar venture.

Greenpeace says that the oil project threatens the vulnerable Arctic ecosystem and that it will further accelerate global warming.

In the early hours of Monday, six Greenpeace activists boarded the 420-foot barge bound for BP Amoco’s ‘Northstar’ development - the company’s artificial drilling island currently under construction in the Arctic Ocean.

Speaking to IPS from a communications center they have set up on the barge, the activists said they forced the vessel to return to Anchorage Alaska, thus delaying a project that is bound to cause irreparable damage to virgin territory.

“This is one more step in our campaign against BP. We are calling on BP to cancel Northstar and slow the polar meltdown,’’ says Greenpeace campaigner Melanie Duchin.

On completion, the Northstar project will be the first undersea pipeline transporting oil from offshore wells to the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

Greenpeace is among a group of NGOs strongly opposed to the Northstar project. The group is calling on BP Amoco to follow the advice of 13 percent of its shareholders who voted last April in favor of a resolution to cancel Northstar and invest the savings in its solar division.

Greenpeace says the polar regions are on the front-line of global warming. As one of the largest fossil fuel producers, BP Amoco’s actions will fuel global warming from a region where temperatures are rising three to five times faster than elsewhere on the planet, the environmental group says.

During the last four decades, the impact of global climate change has thinned Arctic sea ice by 40 percent. Recent research by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) notes that human-induced climate change was almost certainly to blame for an expanse of Arctic Ocean ice, the size of Texas, that has vanished in the past 20 years.

BP Amoco insists that the project is environmentally sound and that they remain “committed to Northstar.’’ Spokesman Ian Fowler says that the company has been working towards reducing climate change in recent years.

In its latest public relations campaign, BP Amoco has spent 200 million dollars, demonstrating the company’s commitment to renewable energy. The campaign is titled “Beyond Petroleum’’ and it uses the green colors of BP to project an environmentally friendly image.

“Until BP cancels Northstar and starts seriously investing in renewables, a polar bear sitting on a melting ice-cap would be a fitting corporate logo,’’ says Duchin, a Greenpeace activist, referring to BP’s new logo design which has the image of the sun.

BP merged with US oil company Amoco in August of 1998, creating one of the largest petroleum and petrochemical groups in the world. Shortly before the merger, BP announced that it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2010, a plan far exceeding the goals set for industrialized nations by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in Kyoto in 1997.

BP Amoco, eager to portray an image of good corporate citizenship and promote itself as a “green’’ company, has also signed on tothe UN Global Compact which was officially launched last month by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The UN Global Compact, which includes some 50 large US and European Corporations, including oil company Shell and agrochemical giant DuPont, calls on businesses to enact nine principles derived from international agreements on labor standards, human rights and environmental practices.

Under the Compact, Annan asked signatories to promote greater environmental responsibility and encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Critics have argued that since the Compact is not legally binding it cannot be enforced in the future. “(It) gives corporations a big public relations opportunity to project themselves as green, whilst not having to commit to any fundamental change,’’ says Joshua Karliner from Corporate Watch.

Guidelines issued by the United Nations allow these corporations to use the UN logo, thus enabling them to “greenwash’’ their image in the eyes of consumers whilst pursuing their own corporate goals to boost profits and productivity, the critics say.

Environmental groups, however, say it is the actions of corporations that speak loudest and the ‘Beyond Petroleum’ campaign is no more than a ploy to hide the lack of environmental concern inherent in projects such as Northstar.

“Despite these public statements, BP Amoco continues to pursue risky oil exploration in the pristine and vulnerable Arctic Ocean,’’ says Mac Gill of Greenpeace.

During the next three years, BP plans to spend 50 times more on new oil explorations and drilling projects than on renewable energy sources such as solar power. It has also announced a 40 percent increase in oil and gas investment.

Last year the company invested 45 million dollars to create one of the world’s largest solar energy companies, BP Solarex, but such efforts pale in comparison with the fossil fuel projects.

“Their core business is still petroleum. They are spending millions of dollars on green publicity but billions of dollars on research for new sources of oil,’’ notes Karliner.