The fossil industry should have a seat at the table in discussions of the “devastating effects environmental shifts have had in the Arctic,” senior analysts from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Arctic Institute argue in a recent post.
“Offering the petroleum industry an invitation to discuss climate change mitigation and adaptation in a region that many believe is melting because of their business model is counterintuitive and controversial. But it is essential,” Gordon and Herrmann write. “A long-term, hopeful vision for a world run primarily on zero-carbon renewable energy resources is imperative in the fight against climate change. But so, too, is the acknowledgement that decarbonizing the global economy will not happen overnight.”
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The post notes that oil and gas accounted for one-third of Alaska’s employment and two-thirds of the state’s revenue in 2014. It also stresses the need for “reliable, publicly available knowledge about Arctic oil’s scientific specifications,” to “realistically assess the hazards of Arctic resource development.”
