OPINION: It’s past time to halt development of Alaska fossil-fuel megaprojects

President Joe Biden just did it again: his administration just authorized another fossil fuel mega-project, approving exports to non-free trade agreement countries from an Alaska LNG project that includes an 807-mile natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to tidewater.

The Department of Energy’s April 13 approval of exports from the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation’s LNG project follows the Department of the Interior’s approval of the Willow oil development project in Northwest Alaska. Both actions are completely inconsistent with Biden’s commitments to decarbonize the economy, replace fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy and lead the world in addressing the climate crisis.

Clearly, more development was not what U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, intended when he said, “Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once.”

The latest climate report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s most authoritative body on climate impacts, paints a horrific, alarming picture of what’s ahead, unless humanity steps up immediately to meet the challenge. Scientists emphasized that time is running out to address climate change as human-induced activities have already warmed the planet 1.1°C from pre-industrial levels and spurred changes to the climate that are unprecedented in recent human history.

The IPCC states that existing and currently planned fossil fuel projects are far more than the climate can handle.

Considering the impending and potentially catastrophic impacts, we cannot afford to greenlight new oil projects like Willow, which will lock in many more decades of oil production, and gas projects like the Alaska LNG export facility and pipeline.

While Willow is actually happening, a North Slope gas line has been under development for more than four decades without achieving sales contracts or financing; the high cost of bringing Alaska LNG to market means it’s very unlikely ever to be competitive. The Biden administration is pushing increased LNG exports to help European allies fill the gap from Russian cutbacks, but the Alaska LNG project wouldn’t be operational until 2030, so it wouldn’t help the current supply crisis. Since methane is a much (80 times) more potent near-term greenhouse gas than CO2, the Alaska LNG project would worsen global warming and lock in methane use for decades.

Some Alaskans have expressed support for Willow, anticipating the jobs and the positive economic impact from oil money to support lifestyles and public services. However, positive economic effects will be offset by the climate-warming damage unfolding across the state, a large part of which is underlain by thawing permafrost. Global warming is causing dramatic reductions in cryospheric elements (permafrost, seasonal snow cover, glaciers, Arctic sea ice), sea level rise and increased ocean acidification and deoxygenation. These effects will increasingly diminish fish and marine mammal populations, which many Alaskans depend on for food security and their livelihoods. Other impacts include escalating costs due to infrastructure failure on unstable land, relocation of communities threatened by coastal and riverbank erosion and intensifying storms and wildfires.

President Biden and his administration still have the power to stop ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in an undeveloped area that could release more than 280 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere over its 30-plus year lifetime.

Some future changes are unavoidable and/or irreversible, but can be limited by deep, rapid and sustained global greenhouse gas emission reductions. Limiting global temperature rise to less than 1.5°C is still theoretically feasible if global emissions peak before 2025 and are halved overall from 2019 levels by 2030.

It’s past time to halt new development of climate-wrecking fossil fuels and move Alaska toward a sustainable and renewable economy. We can start by ending new oil and gas leasing and development, and putting the brakes on start-up projects like Willow and the Alaska LNG project.

Kay Brown is the Arctic Policy Director for Pacific Environment. She has also served as the Director of Oil and Gas for the State of Alaska, as well as Executive Director of the Alaska Democratic Party.

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