
When the U.S. government refuses to include the costs of climate change in its environmental assessments, we’re the ones that pay.
A new report from Greenpeace USA and Oil Change International shows that President Obama’s plan to expand offshore oil and gas drilling will lead to an increase in global carbon dioxide emissions—and those emissions will impose billions in social costs that we’ll all be stuck paying for.
More Drilling Leads to Increased Carbon Emissions
The report, The Climate Change Costs of Offshore Oil Drilling, uses the government’s own oil production estimates and finds that the Obama administration’s proposed 2017-2022 Five-Year Program for offshore oil leasing could lead to increased emissions of 850 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over roughly 50 years. That’s equivalent to the emissions from 3.6 million cars on the road over that same time period.
Of this total, about half of the emissions—440 million metric tons—would come from expanded drilling in the Arctic Ocean and another 384 million would come from the Gulf of Mexico. The report builds on the findings of a recent study by the Stockholm Environment Institute, which found that phasing out the leasing of federal lands to fossil fuel companies could significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
And, unsurprisingly, this increase in emissions comes at a high cost to you and me. Using the government’s official estimates for the Social Cost of Carbon, we found that the offshore drilling program would impose net social costs of between $59 billion and $179 billion over the next 50 years.
In his final few months in office, President Obama is looking to cement his legacy as a climate champion, building on advancements like the Clean Power Plan and the Paris climate agreement. Expanding offshore drilling would do the exact opposite, but there is still time for the president to reverse course and put a halt to new offshore oil leasing.
Here’s why he should.
What is the Social Cost of Carbon, Anyway?
Our daily lives are connected to the climate in ways both obvious and subtle and for that reason carbon pollution dumped into the atmosphere will cost us in a variety of ways.
For one, climate change is already a significant threat to human health. More frequent heat waves, droughts, changing infectious disease patterns and air pollution will lead to increased risk of illness, more premature deaths and higher health costs.
Similarly, climate change will impact our food systems by changing temperature and rainfall patterns and affecting crop yields. Changes in food production will be costly for farmers and consumers—and could be devastating for the planet’s poorest inhabitants.
And as sea-levels continue to rise, coastal governments will have to spend tax dollars to guard against floods and storm surges. The U.S. recently saw its first relocations due to climate change, where a native tribe in Louisiana is in the process of moving from its traditional lands to higher ground because of erosion and rising sea levels. A number of Alaskan Native villages are in similar predicaments, but have not yet secured the necessary funds to resettle.
These climate change costs represent a stealth tax that we are already paying and which is set to increase rapidly in the years to come. Fossil fuel companies make their profits by off-loading these costs onto the rest of us. You won’t see this tax at the gas pump, but we are paying it nonetheless.
The U.S. government has started to come up with a system to tally up these climate impacts. The official government Social Cost of Carbon estimates calculate the costs of emitting one metric ton of carbon dioxide in a given year. The costs inexorably rise over time as the planet’s climate system becomes more and more stressed. These official numbers almost certainly underestimate the true costs of climate change, but they are a useful benchmark.
The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem
But just because the government has these handy estimates doesn’t mean it’s using them.
In its Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed offshore drilling program, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) doesn’t calculate the social costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions. It doesn’t even admit that expanding oil and gas leasing will lead to higher global emissions.
Science says it should.
If you add up the climate-related social costs associated with burning the oil that would be pumped under the proposed offshore plan, they may be larger than the net economic benefits gained from selling that oil. The omission of these downstream costs is a fundamental flaw in BOEM’s environmental assessment.
This is even more evidence that expanded offshore oil drilling is a bad bet for the climate and people everywhere. The time has come for President Obama to keep federal fossil fuels in the ground and end oil leasing in the Arctic and in the Gulf of Mexico—raise your voice before the public comment period closes on June 16.
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Comparing rime ice and glaze ice shows how each changes the texture of the blade. Gao, Liu and Hu, 2021, CC BY-ND
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While traditional investment in the ocean technology sector has been tentative, growth in Israeli maritime innovations has been exponential in the last few years, and environmental concern has come to the forefront.
theDOCK aims to innovate the Israeli maritime sector. Pexels
<p>The UN hopes that new investments in ocean science and technology will help turn the tide for the oceans. As such, this year kicked off the <a href="https://www.oceandecade.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)</a> to galvanize massive support for the blue economy.</p><p>According to the World Bank, the blue economy is the "sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem," <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019338255#b0245" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Science Direct</a> reported. It represents this new sector for investments and innovations that work in tandem with the oceans rather than in exploitation of them.</p><p>As recently as Aug. 2020, <a href="https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/esg-investors-slow-make-waves-25tn-ocean-economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reuters</a> noted that ESG Investors, those looking to invest in opportunities that have a positive impact in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, have been interested in "blue finance" but slow to invest.</p><p>"It is a hugely under-invested economic opportunity that is crucial to the way we have to address living on one planet," Simon Dent, director of blue investments at Mirova Natural Capital, told Reuters.</p><p>Even with slow investment, the blue economy is still expected to expand at twice the rate of the mainstream economy by 2030, Reuters reported. It already contributes $2.5tn a year in economic output, the report noted.</p><p>Current, upward <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/-innovation-blue-economy-2646147405.html" target="_self">shifts in blue economy investments are being driven by innovation</a>, a trend the UN hopes will continue globally for the benefit of all oceans and people.</p><p>In Israel, this push has successfully translated into investment in and innovation of global ports, shipping, logistics and offshore sectors. The "Startup Nation," as Israel is often called, has seen its maritime tech ecosystem grow "significantly" in recent years and expects that growth to "accelerate dramatically," <a href="https://itrade.gov.il/belgium-english/how-israel-is-becoming-a-port-of-call-for-maritime-innovation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">iTrade</a> reported.</p><p>Driving this wave of momentum has been rising Israeli venture capital hub <a href="https://www.thedockinnovation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">theDOCK</a>. Founded by Israeli Navy veterans in 2017, theDOCK works with early-stage companies in the maritime space to bring their solutions to market. The hub's pioneering efforts ignited Israel's maritime technology sector, and now, with their new fund, theDOCK is motivating these high-tech solutions to also address ESG criteria.</p><p>"While ESG has always been on theDOCK's agenda, this theme has become even more of a priority," Nir Gartzman, theDOCK's managing partner, told EcoWatch. "80 percent of the startups in our portfolio (for theDOCK's Navigator II fund) will have a primary or secondary contribution to environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria."</p><p>In a company presentation, theDOCK called contribution to the ESG agenda a "hot discussion topic" for traditional players in the space and their boards, many of whom are looking to adopt new technologies with a positive impact on the planet. The focus is on reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment, the presentation outlines. As such, theDOCK also explicitly screens candidate investments by ESG criteria as well.</p><p>Within the maritime space, environmental innovations could include measures like increased fuel and energy efficiency, better monitoring of potential pollution sources, improved waste and air emissions management and processing of marine debris/trash into reusable materials, theDOCK's presentation noted.</p>theDOCK team includes (left to right) Michal Hendel-Sufa, Head of Alliances, Noa Schuman, CMO, Nir Gartzman, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, and Hannan Carmeli, Co-Founder & Managing Partner. Dudu Koren
<p>theDOCK's own portfolio includes companies like Orca AI, which uses an intelligent collision avoidance system to reduce the probability of oil or fuel spills, AiDock, which eliminates the use of paper by automating the customs clearance process, and DockTech, which uses depth "crowdsourcing" data to map riverbeds in real-time and optimize cargo loading, thereby reducing trips and fuel usage while also avoiding groundings.</p><p>"Oceans are a big opportunity primarily because they are just that – big!" theDOCK's Chief Marketing Officer Noa Schuman summarized. "As such, the magnitude of their criticality to the global ecosystem, the magnitude of pollution risk and the steps needed to overcome those challenges – are all huge."</p><p>There is hope that this wave of interest and investment in environmentally-positive maritime technologies will accelerate the blue economy and ESG investing even further, in Israel and beyond.</p>- 14 Countries Commit to Ocean Sustainability Initiative - EcoWatch ›
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