Esperanza Martínez - Oilwatch

It is not easy to oppose oil activity, as it implies confronting the whole development model in existence. 

In spite of environmental, social and cultural impacts being proven at a local as well as global level, and knowing that it is one of the main causes of deforestation and loss of biodiversity, opposing to it in Southern countries is a crime.

It has been proven that a relationship exists between the dependency of a country on the exploitation of oil and its subsequent development, which in the majority of cases is expressed in deadlock and impoverishment. There are records of oil countries that have gone from crisis to crisis, losing their resources and becoming ever more dependent, decapitalized and in many cases violent.

In Southern countries opposition to oil is a crime and in the North it is not seen as a popular proposal either; on the contrary, efforts of all kinds are made to guarantee access to this resource.

Fossil fuel debt

Demands are made for the ecological debt of oil, gas and coal because of their local impact: deforestation, destruction of wildlife, river contamination, extinction of peoples, displacement of populations; and the global impacts such as climate change.

The petrol industry is one of the most polluting industries in existence. Social and environmental impacts are produced from the exploration, extraction, transportation and burning of fossil fuels. Recently, UNICEF the WHO and UNEP published a report in which they state that pollution kills approximately 5,500 children daily.

To put costs on destruction is practically impossible. However it is, for example, possible to use the clean-up costs of some events as a reference. The clean up of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, off the coast of Alaska, was over $7 billion, an equivalent of a dollar for each barrel that was spilt.

The amounts requested in different lawsuits for compensation or damages vary from case to case, but always reach millions of dollars. This being said, those affected by the causes of pollution are never satisfied as the damage caused to them is immeasurable.

The chemicals used in hydrocarbon activities affect the environment, human health, wildlife, communal co-existence and agriculture. Furthermore, residues are generated in extraction activities. For each barrel extracted it is calculated that an equivalent of one whole barrel of waste is created.

Apart from pollution, deforestation is caused by opening up access paths, platforms or oil pipeline routes. It is calculated that for each drill hole, at least two hectares of wood must be cut.

To this debt is added the lack of recognition of the real price of a non-renewable natural resource, one that has taken millions of years to be created. This would include the strength of nature’s work, time, energy, etc.

On the other hand, hydrocarbon pollution has ceased to become a local problem and has turned into a global one.

In 1999 86.9 quadrillion cubic metres of gas and 152.2 million barrels of oil were consumed (The Institute of Petroleum, 2001) and 6 billion tons of carbon were released.

This has led to changes in the temperature of the planet, a rise in sea levels, melting of polar ice caps and glaciers, floods, droughts, more serious and frequent climatic disasters, and also a rise in tropical diseases. One of the disasters with the greatest impact is the change and decrease in water for agriculture.

Furthermore, oil has a relation to external debt in that it acts as a guarantee for in indebtedness, as a plaintiff in infrastructure investments and because the largest part of income for oil exports is destined to external debt payments.

It is not only about charging the money that they owe us, but trying to repair what has been damaged, to reconstruct areas in a way that allows communities to recover their self-sustaining capacity, and above all to stop the increase in ecological debt.

A growing debt

In spite of the knowledge that the burning of fossil fuels is the principal cause of climate change, and that its extraction requires the massive destruction of forests, in the last five years investments in fossil fuels have been 100 times greater than in other kinds of energy (Oilwatch, 1997).

It is also calculated that Multilateral Credit Agencies have investments in fossil fuels of around $50 billion.

In the last ten years, the oil frontier has grown. 100 new countries have been incorporated into exploration activities and exploration and exploitation agreements have been drawn up for deep-sea areas.

1999 was the greatest year for discoveries in the last decade. It was not that drilling has increased, but that prospection techniques have improved. In the second half of the 1990s, 4.5 million barrels were added to the proven reserves, constituting an increase of 50% on that obtained in the first half of the decade.

New discoveries of gas have been greater than oil. In the second half of the 1990s, discoveries of new gas reserves were 85% higher than oil. Oil was found in 95 countries, and 50% of the total was to be found in ten of them

Proven reserves in different countries reach such high levels that they will never be able to be extracted owing to the fact that countries that have ratified the Convention on Climate Change have taken on a series of commitments that, although postponed, will inevitably have to be assumed. This will undoubtedly presume an obligatory transition to renewable energy sources. It is calculated that around $4 billion tons of carbon exist, contained in fossil fuels found still under the Earth’s surface (UK Petroleum Institute) [1].

Nevertheless, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) it is hoped that the world demand for oil will increase by 56% (that is, 43 million barrels a day) in the coming two decades.

On the other hand, the US Energy Department's Statistical Agency, in its annual prognosis, said that the world demand for oil would increase from its current consumption of 77 million barrels per day, to 119.6 barrels per day in the year 2020. This agency believes that oil will continue to be the predominant energy source, as it has been for decades. It also considers that production of oil, in both OPEC and non-OPEC countries, will increase thanks to new production technologies that allow oil companies to access new hydrocarbon findings in distant and inaccessible places and in deep waters.

The moratorium on oil exploration

There are many ways of promoting the moratorium. One is the proposal of countries such as Costa Rica, which has declared itself an “Oil-Free Country”

Another is progressive application: a declaration to be free forever of activities of intensive extraction of natural resources, in ecologically fragile areas like in the two intangible areas declared by Ecuador.

This is also the case of indigenous territories with autonomous indigenous status, such as the Miskito peoples in Nicaragua, who have declared their land free of oil exploitation.

There are also ways through reduction of exploitation quotas, which obviously have an impact on the reduction of exploration, a mechanism that allows crude oil prices to be increased, by reducing supply.

Legal basis for the moratorium

• The Precaution principle, recognized in various environmental treaties and conventions, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Framework Climate Change Convention and the Rio Declaration.
• The right of individuals to live in a healthy environment, recognized by the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966.
• The recognition of collective rights enshrined in Convention 169 of the ILO, which recognizes the right of people to decide what development model they want to follow
• The obligation established in Article 3 of the Climate Change Convention, which calls for measures to be taken to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change, as well as to mitigate adverse effects.
• The governing objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity – the conservation of biodiversity.

Precedents already exist in international law of moratoria decreed for environmental, human health or public interest reasons. Included among them are:

• The international convention that declared the moratorium on the commercial exploitation of whales in 1986.
• The environmental protection protocol of the Antarctic Treaty, which in its Article 7 prohibits mining activities
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) 1973, which applies a moratorium on the selling of species in danger of extinction.
• The moratorium on the commercial use of rBGH, as well as other genetically modified organisms.
• The bilateral agreement between the USA and Russia that proposes a moratorium on plutonium production.
• Finally, in several countries agreements protecting fishing and other aquatic species have been signed, either of a temporary or permanent natures; as well as moratoria on commercial tree cutting.

For this reason, the moratorium can be applied through the following mechanisms:

1.      WITH RESISTANCE: this is a way of executing the moratorium unilaterally. For this organizations with capacity to convene and mobilize are needed. Furthermore clarity and examples are required to identify the perversity of this activity.

2.      GOVERNMENTAL DECLARATIONS: it is necessary to differentiate the conditions of each country. The situation of countries that own great quantities is of oil is completely different to those that hardly have resources for internal consumption, but who nevertheless suffer from the impact of fossil fuel consumption.

3.      IN INTERNATIONAL FORUMS: In international forums, agendas and speeches gradually transform into laws and proposals for collective action. For this reason it is important to impregnate international forums gradually with the concept of the moratorium.