Commenting on Exxon’s deal to drill for oil in the Russian Arctic, Greenpeace senior polar campaigner Ben Ayliffe said:
“Exxon’s staggering Arctic investment is proof that the age of easy oil is coming to an end. The oil industry is being pushed into increasingly remote and marginal areas where costs and risks are commensurately higher, and all to chase the last remaining drops of a fuel that causes pollution, corruption and climate change.”
He continued:
“You have to ask what it means for global efforts to combat climate change when the world’s biggest oil company is pumping these kinds of sums into the Arctic, a region that’s opening up to exploitation because rising temperatures are causing the ice to retreat. World leaders need to create conditions that would see hundreds of billions invested in clean energy projects instead of frontier oil.”
ENDS
Greenpeace press office – 0207 865 8255