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Shell undermine protection for endangered whale

In a 48-hours where the ideas of geo-engineering gain prominence, it was a story in this weekend’s Observer Business and Media section that caught my eye for good environmental journalism. Oil giant Shell is accused of influencing–editing–an environmental report on the impact of the Sakhalin II oil project, which threatens the habitat of the western grey whale.

What’s good about the journalism in this story is that, while offering a balanced report and quoting perspectives from both sides, the journalist, Nick Mathiason, makes the editorial decisions to provide fundamental facts of the story that place the project in a larger context. For example, he informs the reader that the Sakhalin project will “also release 1.6m tonnes of carbon dioxide, three times the UK’s annual carbon footprint.” Identifying the wider impacts of Shell’s activities in this way is an important contribution to revealing the externalised/hidden costs (generally environmental ones) in the production of consumable resources.

This is what Shell say about the environmental audit under question, on their website:

The Sakhalin II project has set new standards in social and environmental performance and transparency in Russia… Independent environmental consultants to the lenders (AEAT) published a major report in October 2007 noting a “high level of compliance”. Where instances of non-compliance were identified, AEAT commented that “those were either minor in nature or else Sakhalin Energy had plans in place for their resolution.”

Not surprising, really, if Shell’s head Jeroen van der Veer was allowed to edit and amend the report before final publication. Shell’s promises to follow environmental protection policies have also come under criticism, especially in relation to the habitat of the threatened western grey whale (PDF).

Important to remind the reader that the ‘anxiety’ of manipulation came in over 40-pages of emails from a UK government agency, not a charity or committed journalist. The story is built on emails released under a Freedom of Information Act request from the Observer, which reveals the ‘anxiety’ from a UK government agency towards Shell’s manipulation of the environmental credentials of the report. Rob Edwards, freelance writer and environment editor for the Sunday Herald in Scotland told me in an interview recently: “The FOI Act has revolutionized the relationship between government agencies and journalists. It’s never quick, and can take weeks or months or years to come through, so you have to be patient, but it’s now a fundamentally different relationship.” (That means more accountability. Check out Rob’s story on Scottish civil service flights, for example.)

Another good sign of this story (and how a journalist builds on a running story, using interim time in getting FOI requests to produce fully original, newsworthy stories) is that Mathiason has been covering this  since at least 2005. Here are his two earlier stories from 2005 and 2006:

• Shell costs on Sakhalin spiralling
• Setback for Shell as whale expert quits over Sakhalin

The other thing good about this story is the pressure it maintains on Shell. And, as Mathiason notes in the earlier story, “Earlier this year, following pressure from environmentalists, Shell changed the route of a pipeline which could have led to the extinction of the whales.” Pressure works, sometimes. The charity Pacific Environment is the source of much of the pressure on Shell’s and Gazprom’s activity.

Deeper significance
As Mathiason points out, the alleged manipulation and ’stage-managing’ from Shell has deeper significance, in a couple of ways. First is that the practice of Shell’s manipulation may also need investigating in relation to other projects that have environmental impacts, especially in the Arctic:

Shell is the oil major with the biggest interests in the Arctic. Earlier this year, it controversially spent more than $2bn acquiring drilling leases in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. It is also spending billions exploiting tar sands in Canada, a hugely energy-intensive process. Campaigners say Shell will use audits similar to that of Sakhalin to argue it is taking adequate steps to protect the environment.

Secondly, if such manipulation did take place, what significance does it have in relation to Shell maintaining its investment in areas where Russia is attempting to force Western companies out? This doesn’t relate only to the current Georgia crisis, but to the behaviour of Russia over Sakhalin dating back to 2006, for example their aggression in pressing Shel to sell much of its stake to Gazprom, the Russsian energy giant.

And the climate problem?
The problem with Kyoto and cap-and-trade systems is that, in the end, the richer economies will manipulate the system, as has happened with Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism, cap-and-trade and the EU ETS systems. It is also the problem with James Lovelock’s call to let Gaia/nature run its course and cull humanity back down to a population that won’t rapidly interfere with the climate: the culled will be the poor and resourceless.

In his book ‘Kyoto 2′, Oliver Tickell calls for limits not on individuals (nine billion of us by 2050) but on the carbon producers, such as Shell. If Shell, Gazprom and other carbon producers (oil and gas companies) were set a limit for the amount of CO2 they can produce, then the Sakhalin II project would, truly, have to fit within their binding ‘environmental protocols’ and production limits.

Further background on Shell and Sakhalin

• European Bank of Reconstruction and Development pulls out of project (due to environmental concerns. the EBRD is a bank drawing on public taxpayer funds)
• Dirty dossier on Shell
• The official website for Sakhalin II
• Shell on Sakhalin II

To use the Freedom of Information Act:

• Freedom of Information Act
• What do they know (takes you through the process)

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