New shale gas drilling licences covering 2,700 square kilometers of British countryside, large parts of which are protected as ecologically sensitive, are about to be issued by the Oil and Gas Authority. The West Country, the Isle of Wight and parts of the fragile Jurassic Coast of Dorset are amongst the protected areas where licences for fracking will be offered.

According to British PM David Cameron, his government is “going all out for shale”, which will offer the country’s strained economy “more jobs and opportunities for people, and economic security”. According however to reports published by civil society groups, such as Friends of the Earth, the environmental, social and economic costs of hydraulic fracturing far outweigh its benefits to the oil giants now pressing for fast track licences.

On August 18^th, the Oil & Gas Authority launched a consultation on its strategic plan-level Habitats Regulation Assessment of the licence blocks, a fast-track procedure which will cover the need for site-specific EIAs. The assessment checks whether the activities will have any “likely significant effects” (LSEs) on the habitats of the licence block, in which case a further detailed appropriate assessment will be undertaken, in accordance with art. 6.3 of the European Union’s Habitats Directive. Of the 159 blocks assessed for likely significant impacts, the authority concluded that 27 will have no LSEs, whereas 132 were subjected to a further appropriate assessment.

Local and international environmental groups are alarmed by the prospect of hydraulic fracturing operations for shale gas taking place within some of the country’s most treasured habitats and landscapes. As stated by Greenpeace’s head campaigner for energy Daisy Sands: “This is the starting gun on the fight for the future of our countryside. Hundreds of battles will spring up to defend our rural landscapes from the pollution, noise and drilling rigs that come with fracking. It seems clear that the government is responding to the vigorous lobbying from the fracking companies by ignoring both the economic and environmental evidence that clean, renewable energy is a far better bet for investment and the planet.”

According to Friends of the Earth, “new fracking rules interfere with local democracy”, as “local councils will no longer be able to protect their communities from dirty, dangerous fracking”.

Earlier in 2015, a broad alliance of environmental groups including WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth delivered a 267,000 strong petition urging PM David Cameron to reconsider his strong support to fracking.

 Read more: Friends of the Earth, The Guardian

On September 18th, the Parliament ratified three concession contracts for blocks between the Hellenic Republic and a) Energean Oil & Gas/Petra Petroleum, b) Energean Oil & Gas /Trajan Oil & Gas LTD, and c) Hellenic Petroleum / Edison / Petroceltic. The areas where hydrocarbon exploration and drilling has been approved are the onshore block of Ioannina, in the Region of Epirus, the offshore block of Patraikos, and Katakolo, in W. Peloponnese. Also ratified by parliamentary law was a fourth contract with Kavala Oil S.A./Energean Oil and Gas/Hellenic Petroleum S.A., which modifies a 1999 contract for the offshore area of the Thracian Sea. Despite the Minister’s expressed concerns about the possibility of shale gas extraction in Greece, on environmental grounds, the ratified contracts for onshore exploration do not exclude fracking. 

- Why Economists Can No Longer Ignore Environmental Issues | Economy Watch (29 April 2014).

“How many Superstorm Sandys will it take? By how much does the sea level have to rise? How many severe droughts and floods (and where) will it take before we come to the realisation that ignoring natural capital and its many externalities is simply bad economics?

The difference between the financial and environmental crisis is that we actually do have a good body of work that incorporates natural capital in models of growth. The problem is that it has remained to a large extent the restricted domain of environmental economists. The vast majority of us were able to get degrees in economics without ever reading a single paper on environmental economics or encountering natural capital as an argument in the production functions we studied. We did hear about Pigouvian taxes of course – and so figured the problem had been solved…”

- Romania will not exploit shale gas in next five years, but it needs to be energy independent from Russia| Romania-Insider.com (25 April 2014)

“Romania will not exploit shale gas in the next five years, but it is important that the country manages to secure energy independence, as well as for the Republic of Moldova, via domestic production, and by respecting environmental standards, said Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta.

In the next five years, Romania has to shape up it environment legislation, so that all guarantees are taken if in five years there will be shale gas exploitation. The PM noted the country’s dependence to Russia and to Gazprom on the gas front.

His statements came as the shale gas exploitation by Chevron in some region of Romania has been opposed since starting last fall. The company managed to build its first exploration well, and is currently searching for shale gas in North East Romania.”

- EU must focus on environmental crisis as well as social and economic | London Green Party (11 April 2014).

“Speaking at a conference entitled 'A Better Europe Now' organised by the Spring Alliance – an umbrella group of civil society groups and trade unions working in Brussels - she said we faced an environmental crisis as well as a social and economic one.

It's vital that the EU tackles the triple crises the world is facing: environmental, economic and social. They are all intimately linked, and unless we tackle them together we can't really hope to solve any of them.”

- Why US fracking companies are licking their lips over Ukraine, by Naomi Klein | The Guardian (10 April 2014)

"I call this knack for exploiting crisis for private gain the shock doctrine, and it shows no signs of retreating. We all know how the shock doctrine works: during times of crisis, whether real or manufactured, our elites are able to ram through unpopular policies that are detrimental to the majority under cover of emergency. Sure there are objections – from climate scientists warning of the potent warming powers of methane, or local communities that don't want these high-risk export ports on their beloved coasts. But who has time for debate? It's an emergency! A 911 call ringing! Pass the laws first, think about them later.

Plenty of industries are good at this ploy, but none is more adept at exploiting the rationality-arresting properties of crisis than the global gas sector.

For the past four years the gas lobby has used the economic crisis in Europe to tell countries like Greece that the way out of debt and desperation is to open their beautiful and fragile seas to drilling. And it has employed similar arguments to rationalise fracking across North America and the United Kingdom".

The new Directive 2014/52/EU “of 16 April 2014 amending Directive 2011/92/EU on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment” has been welcomed by many environmental groups as a major step towards strengthening impact assessment legislation. It has however also attracted much criticism as hydraulic fracturing, a relatively new and environmentally detrimental technology for the extraction of shale gas, will eventually not be covered by the new legislation. 

Intense pressures by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and industry lobbies against specific environmental assessment legislation for shale gas have been crowned with success: the political agreement on the new environmental impact assessment (EIA) directive, a compromise agreement between the Permanent Representatives Committee and the European Parliament, does not include specific requirements for shale gas operations. 

A 2012 decision to suspend shale gas exploration activity, following protests in southeast Romania, was reversed by the Senate on 31 January. The Senate’s overwhelming majority rejected a motion that had been proposed by incumbent PM Victor Ponta, when his USL party was in opposition.

Intense pressures by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and industry lobbies against specific environmental assessment legislation for shale gas have been crowned with success: the political agreement on the new environmental impact assessment (EIA) directive, a compromise agreement between the Permanent Representatives Committee and the European Parliament, does not include specific requirements for shale gas operations.

In retreat from its initial position and disregarding the European Parliament’s vote for the inclusion of shale gas operations under mandatory EIA rules (CrisisWatch 21), the European Commission will only be proposing a set of ‘soft’ recommendations for this environmentally hazardous hydrocarbon extraction technique.