The Way of the Future? Oil and Global Warming.
According to a BBC report, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador has announced a one-year moratorium on oil exploration in the Yasuni National Park, which covers about 9,820 sq km in the country’s Amazon rainforest region. It has one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth.
He is asking for foreign donations worth US $350m in exchange for a promise not to exploit the Yasuni reserves. This amount is estimated to be half what the oilfield would bring each year in if it was developed. Total oil reserves in the Park are thought to be around 1 billion barrels. $350m could be reached by writing off some of Ecuador’s national debt and increasing international aid, as well as through donations by private individuals.
Germany, Norway, parliamentarians in Italy, and the World Bank have expressed interest in the proposal.
$ 350 million does not appear to be much, considering how some wealthy nations throw their money around. If successful, could it become a precedent for a new mechanism to prevent global warming? Or is it all a stunt?
October 1st, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I note an imbalance between the $350 million suggested and the $80 * 1 Billion barrels of approximate oil in there. The devil is in the details, and I imagine that fallback conditions on the money being given but the promise being broken, would constrain which companies get the eventual benefit of the petro-dollars. I still maintain that these deals will be meaningless in a global warming setting without a globally constrained carbon rationing (not that I believe it is likely anyway) . Salvaging one particular wilderness area is admirable and helpful in a biodiversity way, but global oil (and all other fossil fuels) production is increasing exponentially regardless.