Oil major BP played a key role in lobbying the Trump administration to allow oil and gas drilling in two previously protected areas of the Alaskan Arctic, Unearthed can reveal.
BP also backed the Trump administration’s move to begin oil and gas leasing within a highly sensitive area of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite the threat this poses to the way of life of the Gwich’in people, who have lived in the region for thousands of years.
Climate impact
The news comes after a report released by the campaign group Global Witness found that any investment in new oil and gas fields will be incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
BP has justified investment in new fields, including in the Arctic, based on its controversial projections that oil and gas demand will remain steady over the coming decades, likely jeopardising efforts to limit climate change.
Earlier this year a federal court ruled that Trump’s decision to overturn the ban was unlawful, dealing a major setback to the leasing process. The case is expected to eventually reach the US Supreme Court.
Source unearthed
