KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND the Only Way to Fight Climate Change

OILWATCH

KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND the only way to fight climate change

from the last bit

Publication

Edition Piet Boedt Esperanza Martínez

Graphic Design Tom Heirman

Maps World Oil Atlas, Oilwatch Manuel Pallares Ecociencia ClimaLatina

Photos Oilwatch Eduardo Quintana

With the assistance of Joseph Mutti Joel Ruprecht Pato Chavez Xavier Leon Alexander Naranjo

Publication supported by IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands

Bali, 2007 INDEX CHAPTER 1: THE PROPOSAL Leaving crude oil underground 3 New frontiers 4 Ecuador: Yasuní National Park 6 Timor Leste 8 Mauritania: an ecological cry 10 Bolivia: Madidi National Park 12 Indonesia: Lorentz National Park 14 Nigeria: no more oil blocks 16

CHAPTER 2: THE YASUNÍ MODEL The legal structure of Yasuní National Park 18 The Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (i t t ) Project 20 Predictable impacts of the oil activities in Yasuní 22 The biodiversity of Yasuní: numbers and threats 24 Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, societies of abundance 26

CHAPTER 3: BEYOND THE VALUE Is there economic sense in leaving the oil underground? 28 The hidden costs of petroleum 30 The value of the oil if left underground 34 The invisible impacts 36 Global warming 38

CHAPTER 4: THE GEOPOLITICS OF OIL Oil and the genesis of the capitalist civilization 40 Global end of oil 42 Twentieth century wars 44

CHAPTER 5: TECHNO-FIXES Techno-fixes 46 Cutting-edge technology 48 Waste management 50 The geopolitics of agrofuels 52

CHAPTER 6: A NORTH-SOUTH VISION Common but differentiated responsabilities 56 Mitigating emissions or mitigating impacts 58 Carbon trading 60 Kyoto has failed 62 Oil policies from the south 64

CHAPTER 7: DECLARATIONS Kyoto failure... oil ignored deliberately 66 Declaration on behalf of de-developmentism 68 The international eco-logical call 70

Contact information 71 THE PROPOSAL

LEAVING CRUDE OIL Expected results are: UNDERGROUND • Protection of ecosystems in A new energy and those areas chosen to be the development model that new frontiers of oil devastation. proposes leaving oil under- • Protection of local and global ground is here presented climates. as the only sensible way • Respect for the rights of local to confront the today´s populations. challenges and oppose the • Putting to work a new post-oil emissions market scheme both sides of the common, but dif- energy model. as a way to confront climate ferent, responsibilities. On the one change. side is the responsibility of the nations of the South of the planet to Four types of parties have been It is an ecological model conserve their forests and guaran- identified as potential donors: to replace the “eco-illogical” model, tee conditions of survival of their imposed under the free market local populations, and on the other • n g o and cooperation agencies. paradigm of unlimited growth. is the responsibility of countries • Individuals from Ecuador and The proposal was pre- that contaminate the atmosphere around the planet. sented by Ecuador in 2007, at a and which need to avoid the ex- • Governments. time when the race to extract oil traction and consumption of more • Industries. from the most distant frontiers - fossil fuels. the most vulnerable and fragile areas of the planet - threatens us all, There are different options under because it has caused an unprec- The proposal consists of: analysis to obtain the necessary edented climate crisis and condi- funds to implement this proposal tions of extreme impoverishment- • Not extracting the oil. including: ing for the majority of the world´s • Channelling resources from the developing economies. symbolic sale of oil that will not • Tax deductible donations It is a new energy model be extracted. from income taxes in different that opposes the decadent model • A capitalization fund, from countries. of extracting and burning what na- which interest will provide • Direct donations through the ture has taken millions of years to permanent income. internet. produce. • Develop a model of self- • National campaigns seeking It is an economic model sufficiency (zero emissions, zero support. that seeks not to live from the ex- waste) with these funds for a • Donations from cooperation portation of non-renewable natural food production and energy agencies. richness because it causes a huge supply in a post oil era. • Government to government impact on nature. agreements to allocate amounts It is a proposal that to the proposal or the questions the perception of the cancellation of external debt. dominant model of unlimited and • Philanthropic funds. unsustainable growth based on competition and market forces. Several countries are Esperanza Martínez interested in developing similar Oilwatch models or, at least, have the same objectives. All of them include

3 CHAPTER 1

NEW FRONTIERS* A sustainable model and energy independence based on WHERE THIS PROPOSAL could reduce the vulnerability of diverse low impact energy models. COULD BE APPLIED climate change, increasing resil- • Fragile zones exposed to climate ience capacity. However, climate change, such as mangrove areas or Even though the change erodes the capacity to adapt island states. planet is experiencing a cli- to direct and indirect impacts. The • Arguments for avoiding new oil mate crisis, the oil industry burden of these impacts will fall exploration frontiers is expanding to new fron- upon the marginal populations, tiers, with the majority of and further widen the gap between 1. Climate Change such frontiers being mature north and south, rich and poor. forests or very sensitive ar- Some basic criteria to Climate change is now eas. support the proposal of keeping positioned not only on national the oil underground, come from and international agendas, but Currently the world’s oil recognizing urgent issues such as: also in the everyday lives of people. reserves are 800 billion barrels. If It is no longer a threat or specula- these reserves are burned, more • Maintaining and developing au- tion, but has become a reality that than 320 billion tons of additional tonomous and self-sufficient mod- demands concrete and immediate c o 2 would be produced, reaching a els that: produce zero or close to action. The two principal causes critical point for the planet. zero emissions, recycling wastes of global warming are the burning In order to expand these and working at low levels of entro- of fossil fuels and deforestation. new frontiers public and private py, as is the case of the indigenous Deforestation of man- enterprises are applying diverse communities or traditional peoples groves, for example, could be di- strategies. One characteristic of that maintain a harmonious rela- sastrous for the populations that “de-globalization” that is increas- tionship with nature. live in the area because it renders ingly apparent is the re-positioning • Maintaining zones of mature the coasts even more vulnerable. of nation states over transnational forest, where the structure and Island forest conservation is one corporations. In this process the functions of the forests contrib- of the few protection guarantees. permanent beneficiaries become ute to maintaining a hydrologic Forest conservation in general the services companies, because equilibrium that in turn helps the also protects local climates. they have an advantageous posi- planet to cool – such as with the tion with transnational corpora- tropical forests. tions and companies owned by the • National economies that have state. politics favoring food sovereignty The expected impacts in this new scheme to exhaust oil reserves and then increase them with new exploration, involve opening new vulnerable zones - especially local ones. They also deepen the dependence of those countries whose economies depend on the extraction and exportation of oil. Because climate change affects food production, it puts populations at risk, especially the coastal ones, and threatens water availability. These aspects should therefore be carefully conserved.

4 THE PROPOSAL

2. Destruction of 4. Non-Oil Dependent garbage production are less than Biodiversity Economies in oil dependent models. The oil economy pro- The majority of the Non-oil dependent econ- motes food and energy patterns planet´s biodiversity is located in omies have healthier conditions, based on this resource that is not the South. but those that are dependent on only non-renewable but causes Oil extraction causes in- oil quickly present symptoms of great impact during its extraction evitable destruction of biodiversity. the “Dutch sickness”, meaning that and consumption. However, maybe the most serious all the other productive activities and direct impact of this activity decrease. Oil exploitation is the ac- 6. Destruction of Fresh are toxic water discharges into the tivity that causes the most environ- Water Sources environment as well as other pol- mental and social problems. Cor- luting wastes. These substances ruption, invasions and fraud are all Fresh water is a basic are bio-accumulative and have a part of the oil industry business. element for life and it is scarce. direct relationship with a number Developing new and di- The survival of nature depends on of illnesses. verse energy sources is a necessity its maintenance cycle. However, that cannot be postponed, as it will many oil activities destroy both diversify the incomes of national 3. Traditional Peoples surface and underground fresh economies that are dependent on water sources. A basic criterion to the exportation of this non-renew- Local populations do not determine areas free of oil activities able resource. only conserve important biodiver- should be water protection. sity zones, but through agriculture they have increased it. They also 5. Protection of the Self- * Esperanza Martínez, Oilwatch retain information and technical sufficient Model knowledge that is priceless. For these populations the health of the There are communities ecosystem is indispensable. and economies that maintain a For these populations self-sufficient scheme that guar- that maintain profound relation- antees their food sovereignty with ships with nature, the conservation access and control to the entire of their territory is the only way to food cycle. These models have low guarantee their existence. entropy, so wastes, emissions and

5 CHAPTER 1

ECUADOR: YASUNI Second, because a lot of the so- Reserve, inside the program: Man NATIONAL PARK* called solutions, the projects of en- and Biosphere of the u n e s c o . A RACE FOR LIFE, FROM vironmental services and selling of If oil operations start in KYOTO TO QUITO drains, are causing problems at the this area, the impacts will be un- local level because the owners are avoidable: wastes, deforestation, Ecuador is living transferring their land rights. spills, discharges of toxic waters an important moment of Ecuador has sub- changes. On the one side, scribed international agree- the Constitutional Assembly ments of climate change, of full powers has been es- biodiversity conservation tablished and on the other and protection of protected side, the decision to leave areas; in all of them it has oil underground in the big- compromised to expand its South America gest reserve in the coun- efforts for conservation. try, the i t t project has been approved. The first consti- Pacific Ocean tutes a statement in favour of a change in the economic and political struc- to the environ- ture of the country and the ment, colonization, second, considering that oil Ecuador increase of violence, has been fundamental for etc. the economy of the coun- Yasuní The sub- try, could mean an eco- stances contained in the nomical transformation and oil industry wastes are a change of paradigm in the bioaccummulative and have country. a direct correlation with different sicknesses because they contain The proposal is to leave carcinogenic, teratogenic and mu- oil underground and request a 50% tagenic substances. The majority compensation of what the state of the fresh water organisms do not would gain if it exploits the field. tolerate the high levels of salinity of The procedure will consist in the the formation waters. In addition, emission of bonds for the oil that Looking for funds to the deforestation of tropical areas will remain “in situ” making a dou- maintain oil underground, is a causes droughts. ble compromise of never extracting mechanism which doesn’t mean It is clear that Ecuador that oil and protecting the Yasuni selling the reserves, neither selling assumes this policy for its own in- National Park. environmental services. It is a pay- terest, but it also recognizes the dif- The model questions ment given as a way to compensate ferentiated responsibilities of the the mechanisms currently pro- for what the state will not gain from actions to confront global warm- moted by Kyoto, because these implementing this environmental ing. This is why it is legitimate to mechanisms punish countries like policy of global importance. demand a compensation. Ecuador twice. First because the Ecuador chose this pro- A complementary pro- biophysical, social and economical posal for the Yasuni Park located posal to the one that has been impacts worsen when ecosystems in the Amazon Region, territory mentioned is to create a perma- are more intervened, and the ef- of the Huaorani nationality, and nent capitalization fund in order fects are greater and less money is which is also a Biosphere World to avoid the expenditure of all the available to adapt to the changes. economic resources in the lifetime

6 THE PROPOSAL

of the project. The aim of this alter- ARGUMENTS FOR THE native is to produce 50% of the re- PROPOSAL IN ECUADOR sources and provide a permanent income. Whoever pays for main- 1. Contribute to stop taining the oil underground will climate change receive a certificate from the government. An estimated price of $5 i t t has 1,000 million bar- has been calculated1. rels of crude oil, equivalent to 440 There are different ways million tons of carbon. to finance the proposal: through The oil activities to be stopped are located in the heart direct donations, the Internet, do- of the remaining tropical Amazon 4. Respect the nations from cooperation agencies, rainforest. This area produces the agreements between governments majority of the clouds, that by the Huaorani peoples rights or external debt cancellation. Albedo effect reflect the solar ra- But the proposal would The i t t Project as well as diation. the block 31 are located in the terri- be incomplete if we don’t, first of tories of the Huaorani and people all, look at the effects that it will 2. Avoid biodiversity who live in voluntary isolation. have on the Ecuadorian society be- In this area there are cause it will question what has al- destruction groups like the Tagaeri, Tarome- ways been the axis of the economic nane and possibly Oñamenane that policies and secondly, if we tie the According to a 2004 decided to avoid every contact with use of the funds to activities direct- scientific report, Yasuni National the exterior world and that have re- ed towards the re-orientation of Park protects the greatest biodi- jected all the attempts of contact or versity of the Planet. Yasuni also the economy and consolidate the occupation of their territory. These conserves one of the greatest por- people count with precautionary national efforts to reach food sov- tions of the Amazon wildlife iden- measures given by the Inter-Ameri- ereignty. tified as one of the 24 priority areas can Commission of Human Rights At the international level, for wildlife in the world. Only one since May 10th of 2006. this approach will allow to trans- hectare of these forests has almost form the international logic in rela- as many species of trees and bush- 5. Start the way to a post tion to global warming. In Kyoto, es as have the United States and Canada together. oil economy the evasive and harmful actions such as environmental services Ecuador has based its schemes and emissions trading 3. Protect fresh water economy on oil; its dependency on could not be avoided. From Qui- oil reaches up to 60% of the g n p . to, light of America, we motivate The proposal is to change this mod- This area is a gigantic el for one based on production and actions that will confront the cause wetland, that holds one of the prin- not exploitation or exportation of of the problem, the reduction of cipal underground water reser- natural resources. In today’s politi- the quantity of burned oil in the at- voirs, the Tiyayacu formation. cal situation we try to develop a dif- mosphere. Because of the charac- ferent model that won’t sacrifice na- teristics of oil, a relation of 80-20 ture and its inhabitants for the sake toxic water to oil is predicted. of the economy. Usually the underground injection The resources generated of this water is proposed, but this by this compensation will be man- represents an underground water aged with a long term vision, in a contamination risk. capitalization account that will guar- 1 The marginal cost of extraction antee a permanent flow of money. of an oil barrel is between 2 and 7 u s d according to British Petroleum * www.sosyasuni.org

7 CHAPTER 1

TIMOR LESTE* it an advantage or a disadvantage support of the u s a , assassinated to be over a huge oil deposit? half of the population of Timor. “The strategy was Could sovereignty grow between The intervention was made with to survive”. That was the the pressures of the multinational the approval of Washington that answer that the Timor pop- companies? Maybe today after the feared the conversion of Timor to ulation gave to an Oilwatch invasion of the u s a to Irak these a socialist model as other ex Portu- delegation that travelled to questions are easier to answer. guese colonies did. this country a week after its The small island has 32 After Soeharto fall and independence. To be alive thousand square kilometres and 19 with the usually late intervention of during the massacre orga- thousand belong to Timor Leste. the United Nations, a referendum nized and executed by the Everything in the island gives a tes- was called. In this referendum 78.5 Indonesian president was timony of the long war sustained % of the electors voted for its in- their strategy. Even the since Soeharto, the dictator of In- dependence. The results weren’t current president of Timor donesia, invaded it in December of higher because of the colonization Leste, Xamanna Gusmão 1975. The invasion took place only programs that were impulsed by had to “act as a magician 10 days after achieving its freedom the government of Indonesia. Af- to save his life, he used a from the Portuguese rule. With ter this, the killings, instigated by hand trick when he was de- the carnation revolution Portugal the government of Indonesia and tained in 1992. renounced to its colonies and Ori- with the usual impotence of the ental Timor started to dream with United Nations worsen. Timor Timor Leste was con- its sovereignty. Leste conquered its independence stituted as an independent repub- The army of Soeharto, by being alive. lic on may 20th 2002 but its birth who reached the power as the Nowadays, although came along with a big doubt: Was majority of the tyrant with the they have reached its territorial

OIL RESERVES IN THE WORLD

MAURITANIA

NIGERIA INDONESIA ECUADOR

EAST TIMOR

BOLIVIA

8 THE PROPOSAL

sovereignty, Timor should con- ing the liberalization processes and front serious difficulties and fight a privatisation. The decisions inside new battle to conquer its patrimo- the a d b , are taken as in the World nial sovereignty. Bank by votes and the weight of The new country is born the vote is determined by the in- with degraded forest caused by the vestment in the bank. This has al- military actions. The Indonesian lowed Japan to have 13.1 of the de- army deforested big extensions, cisions compared to 0.3 of Timor. even they defoliated the jungle to The j p d a (Joint Petroleum Devel- fight the guerrilla. opment Area) counts with its big With its few coffee and oil deposits. sandal wood for exportation (that The plans for Timor a big opportunity to advance in a have been harvested since the Por- aren’t to support its sovereignty, sovereign model. tuguese arrived) Timor has dif- instead are to deprive its rights. ficulties to structure proposals to Timor is making efforts to exert * Esperanza Martínez, Oilwatch achieve its food sovereignty. control over their oil reserves in a Its energy sovereignty is unequal fight with Indonesia and even worse. Its energy sources be- Australia and under the presurres sides wood are kerosene, gasoline of big companies such as Shell and diesel imported from Indone- and Conoco-Phillips. These com- sia. The majority of the population panies look for the countries were doesn’t have access to these prod- they could have more privileges in ucts. order to decide with whom will But in the other side un- they negociate, and are worried der the soil there are big reserves of about Timor’s intention to set new gas and oil, not only off shore oil (3 taxes. The oil of Timor is a double regions) but there are also 2 areas trap, a permanent thread to its sov- of natural fields one of gas and an- ereignty and a risk to fall in a rent- other one of oil. ist model of economy. Timor Leste initiated its The expectatives of in- independent life in the middle of comes for gas and oil are very high. an economic crisis. Therefore, it It has been calculated that Timor depended completely on the inter- could receive between 8 and 38 national assistance, specially from thousand millions of dollars in the the United Nations. Although as next 30 years, depending on the it is usual, the help is an auto-help frontier line that would be estab- and more than 80% of the funds in- lished. The budget of the govern- vested in rehabilitation programs ment for the next year is 77 mil- have been paid to foreign consul- lions. tants. The discussion of its sov- The situation gets worse. ereignty has many sides. Timor On July 23rd - 2002 Timor became Leste assumed a big human cost a new member of the Asiatic De- for its the territorial independence velopment Bank, which tradition process. Now its heritage is at risk, has been to invest in mega proj- because the huge reserves will de- ects. Nowadays, this institution, stroy the country. as the i m f and the w b is promoting The proposal to maintain the reduction of poverty, support- the oil underground represents

9 CHAPTER 1

MAURITANIA: AN ECOLOGICAL CRY*

More than half of Mauritania is desert and the majority of its 2,9 million inhabitants live from shep- herding and fishing, with the latter constituting more than 50% of its export income. In Mauritania fishing represents almost 50% of commercial trade, 43% of total exports, 25% of the national budget and more than 14% of its gdp. A total of 40,000 jobs depend di- Mauritania has already The most important area rectly from this activity. In been affected by climate change. in terms of biodiversity is the n p b a . weighing the importance of After serious climate crises, a con- It has the greatest concentration of fishing against oil, if there sequent drought, the ruin of shep- reproductive colonies of marine was an international fishing herding activities and the hunger birds in West Africa and the great- organization comparable to that began in the mid 20th centu- est population of hibernating birds o p e c , Mauritania would be ry, a lot of nomad families moved in the world. In total 43 genus and like Saudi Arabia. towards the coast. These groups 273 species of birds and a tempo- had, in the past, only stayed in the ral colony of more than two and Oil activities in Maurita- Banc D’Arguin National Park a half million birds have also been nia have just begun and are located (n p b a ) during the fishing seasons. identified. This ornitho-fauna is an in one of the richest coastal areas in indicator of the great ichtio-fauna the world in terms of marine biodi- 2. Destruction of diversity (15 registered families), versity. which also explains the richness of biodiversity the sea. 1. Climate change Terrestrial mammals Mauritania has great en- such as the Cape hare, 10 species vironmental richness due to its ma- of rodents, jackals, foxes, fennec The oil companies op- rine and coastal biodiversity and erating in Mauritania have stated foxes, skunks, hyenas and two spe- marine ecosystems such as man- cies of wild cats can all be found that its oil reserves amount to 500 groves, estuaries, and vegetation million barrels (almost half of what at Banc D’Arguin National Park. beds. This biodiversity richness is There are also 16 species of croco- the i t t area of Ecuador contains). shared with neighbouring coun- Estimates of natural gas reserves diles and lizards, 7 species of snakes tries of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea and 5 species of turtles. In addition, are between 1,000 and 3,000 bil- Bissau, Guinea and Cape Verde. lion cubic feet. many benthic fauna have been reg- These countries have registered istered: a total of 130 species, most If all the oil from the more than 700 species of fish, 23 Mauritanian sea were exploited, of them bivalves. Among the ar- species of cetaceans (orcas, whales, tiodactyls, the gazelle and cheetah 200 million tons of c o would be 2 sperm whales and dolphins) sev- released into the atmosphere, con- have almost disappeared, (the last eral species of marine turtles and a individuals were registered in the tributing to global warming and considerable population of seals. climate change. 1950s when it was still raining). In terms of flora it is important to

10 THE PROPOSAL

mention the mangroves. The last but the Imraguen population still areas of mangrove forest of Mauri- use sailboats called “lanches”. We tania are inside the n p b a . At least can conclude that the Imraguen 46 plant families and numerous identity is based upon fishing tra- species of algae, fungi and lichen ditions and the use of capture and are also present. navigation techniques. These tech- The marine richness of niques were discovered by outsid- Mauritania has already been af- ers in the mid 20th century and are fected by over-fishing to satisfy the still being used by the populations demands of European markets. In of nine villages that exist within the last years, a new decrease in the n p b a . fish has been registered, which coincides with the launch of off-shore 4. n p b a moratorium tal impacts. The Mauritanian peo- oil exploration. The biodiversity ple could ask for compensation to described above is in imminent The moratorium is a legal protect the nation´s biodiversity danger because of oil activities institution of common use at the and avoid emissions that cause the outside the n p b a sea area. There international and national level. It green house effect. will also be social impacts such is a prudent term decided between The inhabitants of the as the destruction of local econo- the national state and local or in- n p b a depend directly on fishing mies, inflation, insecurity, violence ternational non-state actors, in an activities and tourism along their and deep cultural changes. The effort to analyse, evaluate or make coasts, so any oil related accident Imraguen, with their artisan and a balance of the social, economic could mean the destruction of the industrial activities, would be the or environmental advantages and environment and the fishing econ- most impacted. disadvantages of the past, new or omy of this country. The incom- developing production proposals. patibility between conservation, 3. Traditional peoples, This analysis can empha- tourism, fishing and oil activities economies non dependent on size the protection of the environ- is evident. In Mauritania, sustain- ment; guarantee the exercise of hu- able development and sustainable oil and self-sufficient models man rights, or an adequate and fair societies cannot be created if oil redistribution of wealth. If there exploration activity continues. It Today, almost 1,300 is a negative balance it can help to is important to grasp this reality in Imraguen traditional fishers and discover real alternative possibili- the long term. In some 10 years, oil their families live inside the n p b a . ties, or look for different ways of under the Mauritanian coast will The Imraguen are internationally development. dry up, and with it all related eco- known for their symbiotic relation- The people of Mauri- nomic benefits. The impact that ship with dolphins. The dolphins tania could determine what new will remain will last forever. drive schools of mullet towards the development based on hydrocar- The proposal has local, nets upon being called to do so by bon activities mean, and support national and global benefits. It fishers. However, this cooperative their arguments with the precau- articulates in a coherent way the fishing has practically disappeared tion principle and the innumerable global objectives of conservation, because the dolphins do not swim international agreements that the protection of the economic, social, near the coast anymore. It is be- country has signed. Experience cultural, environmental and collec- lieved that this has happened over in other countries demonstrates tive rights; relief of external debt the last 10 years because of the that this type of development only and solutions to climate change, oil exploration along the coast of brings more impoverishment, en- which in turn is positive for all hu- Mauritania. vironmental destruction and humanity. The use of motorboats man rights violations with other has been expanded in the n p b a , social, economic and environmen- * Ivonne Yánez, Oilwatch

11 CHAPTER 1

BOLIVIA: MADIDI cient way with too much liquid in exploitation causing irreparable NATIONAL PARK* the treated gas and too much gas damage to oil retrieval and the en- being flared. vironment, and disrespect for com- The equipment given by munity rights” (Enrique Mariaca, 1. Keeping the oil y p f b at capitalization time only re- 2006) - as do private corporations. underground to promote ceived corrective maintenance and overhaul, instead of a preventive 2. Protected areas and the development of local and predictive one. No care was communities taken of this equipment, which, the proposal to keep the oil operated at maximum capacity un- underground Bolivia is considered to til it wore out. be one of the poorest economies in Consequently, the struc- Protected areas were the Americas, but it has neverthe- tural reforms in the oil sector that created to care for biodiversity - less granted important oil reserves led to the capitalization/privatisa- in other words, natural heritage to petroleum companies for free. tion of the oil industry damaged .Because the areas are public, they The value of Bolivia´s oil reserves the interests and resources of Bo- belong to all Bolivian inhabitants are $us4 billion, yet through 1997 livia. Their quantification came and achieve the social function of the state handed over $us5.14 bil- from the audit process (based on protecting and conserving the wild lion to these companies. information relating to previously flora and fauna, genetic resources, An oil audit made be- established reserves before priva- natural ecosystems, watersheds tween July 2006 and April 2007, tisation), fulfilment of investments, and their aesthetic historic, eco- under the coordination of Enrique environmental liabilities and gross nomic, scientific and social values Mariaca – assigned to the task by investments by the companies. The - with the objective of conserving President Evo Morales - dem- audit results show policy failures and preserving the natural and cul- onstrated that the oil companies in the sector and the acquisition of tural heritage of the country. didn’t reach their investment or debt for the country by the compa- During the years of exploration commitments due to nies and the people who executed capitalization, the pressures of limited technological effort and the the process in Bolivia. the global market pushed govern- non-fulfillment of exploration con- Since the promulgation ments to sacrifice the protection of tracts. In addition, they wracked of Law 3058, the Bolivian state has public property and goods for the up a list of environmental liabilities recovered the oil wells, exerting its commercial interests of the private that amount to $us61 million. rights as owner. With Supreme sector. In order to offer favourable Even though the profit Decree 28701 of 01/05/2006 for the conditions to “attract investment”, that is generated by the oil indus- Nationalization of Hydrocarbons, governments sought to reduce reg- try is higher than any other eco- the Bolivian State exerted the ulations that protected biodiver- nomic sector, and in spite of the rights established in United Na- sity, protected areas and the envi- manipulated accounting of the oil tions Resolution 1803: “Permanent ronment, and secure the activities companies in presenting exces- Sovereignty over Natural Resourc- of transnational corporations and/ sive investment costs, increased es” and ratified the theory and the or their associates in protected ar- overhead, and disproportionate practice of nationalization. This eas. administrative expenses; some decision was specifically based on Currently, sectors that companies declared their profits to the notion that only the state can have lost political space generate be below zero. Cutting-edge tech- use the natural resources of its ter- conflict in protected areas because nology wasn’t incorporated into ritory to achieve “social function”. the interests over these areas are the y p f b plants, so that when the The objective is to resolve the cur- not just reduced to oil and miner- plants passed into transnational rent and future necessities of its als (Petrobrás, Total Final and hands they didn’t modernize them. population, instead of “carrying Repsol in Madidi, Amboró and They were operated in an ineffi- out indiscriminate and irrational Tipnis and Comsur in San Matias

12 THE PROPOSAL

have concessions within protected tations of the oil exploitation. The areas). Other sectors are interested oil industry finances these n g o s. in these areas such as the phar- Currently there are three maceutical, food, pesticides and superimposed concessions in biological weapons industries that the area: the Rio Hondo blocks, gain huge profits from such biodi- which are in hands of Petrobrás versity. Moreover, there are other (1,000,000 ha, of which 598,000 new economic sectors created for are inside the park: a n m i Madidi, the development of biotechnology the b r -t c o Pilon Lajas and the and technological revolution, with t i p n i s ), Tuichi (805,000 ha, of biological richness their main and which 557,193 are inside the park essential raw material. – a n m i Madidi and the b r -t c o These sectors are some- Pilon Lajas) and Tequeje. Some cause it can stop the destruction of times associated with major inter- prospecting has been done in these fresh water resources and contrib- national ngos that manage more last two, with positive results in the ute to strengthen the presence of economic resources than the in- southern area. the State in protected areas (these come Bolivia receives for its gas ex- If the current govern- days in the hands of the transna- ports. In some circumstances these ment is determined to negotiate tional conservation n g o s). interests are allied to local interest the biological richness of the coun- Above all, this proposal groups that in turn apply pressure try, it must have a comprehensive can be incorporated into develop- for oil exploitation in protected ar- approach and identify the strategic ment plans that are, in turn, the axis eas such as Madidi Park. resources juxtaposed in the area of policy changes intended for im- Madidi comprises 18,960 with other characteristics such as plementation in the country. The km2, and is located between the oil, minerals, biodiversity, water, resources obtained will promote Franz Tamayo and Iturralde prov- the transportation infrastructure the work of the National Devel- inces, north of the state of La Paz. created for its exploitation, the ab- opment Plan, not only motivating The park is classified as one of the sence of the state and the presence the capacities for self-intervention greatest biodiversity reserves in of major conservationist ngo’s in- management, but also allowing the world. The flora of the area is side the Madidi and other parks. the country to retain resources to directly related to its altitudinal Bearing in mind that na- cover its future energy needs. variation and steep orography. It ture and biodiversity could not be In addition, an essential has a tropical and humid climate. built without the social control of element of the proposal is “par- Although the species have not been collective space, the proposal to ticipation and agreement”. This counted, it is known that this park leave oil underground is an impor- element is related not only to in- contains one of the richest forests tant alternative for protected areas stitutional maturity for develop- of Bolivia. Indigenous communi- such as Madidi Park. To leave oil ment, but with an awakening of ties such as the Tacanas, Quechua underground does not only im- the world´s conscience about the and Araona live inside this park ply a contribution to prevent the need to protect areas of the planet and there is evidence of the pres- consequences of climate change. that still retian conditions to make ence of uncontacted peoples: the Oil activities have demonstrated them habitable. Toromonas. not only their deforestation of the The conflicts generated Amazon (which in turn causes * Patricia Molina, f o b o m a d e in Madidi Park are partially due biodiversity loss), but also gener- to the huge resources managed by ate social impacts over indigenous n g o s such as ci and wcs. They do peoples, imposing upon them not take the impact over the lives of other economies and development the local inhabitants into account, models. The implementation of which is why they generate expec- this proposal is also important be-

13 CHAPTER 1

INDONESIA: diversity as a place with a high pri- with a total of 21 billion barrels LORENTZ NATIONAL ority for conservation. In 1999 it and 4 prospects with significant PARK* was designated a Natural World resources: Cross Catalina (200 Heritage Site. mmbo), Lorentz (640 mmbo), There are about 11,000 Muras Oriental (210 mmbo), and Lorentz National inhabitants inside the park, all Steenkool (200 mmbo), are all lo- Park is located in Irian Jaya, of them members of 8 (probably cated in the north western part of which is also known as West 9) indigenous groups: Nduga, the Warim Block. Papua. It has more than 24 Amungme, Damal, Nakai, As- ecosystems, including the mat Keenok, Sempan, Dani, and biggest tropical forest of Komoro. All of them have lived the Asia-Pacific. The Jaya in these territories for more than Mountain (with an eleva- 24,000 years and have developed tion of 4,884 meters above some of the most isolated cultures sea level) is the highest in in the world. all South Asia and is cov- Unfortunately, in this na- ered by glaciers, although tional park there are also minerals it is on the equator. This for exploitation. The Warim Block national park also incor- has big reserves of natural gas and porates a great part of the oil. According to seismic data, Warim Papua area in Irian there are 13 hydrocarbon prospects Jaya.

It is here where the greatest concentration of plant species in all Indonesia is located. There are about 16,000 species, hundreds of them with medicinal characteristics. At least 124 genus are en- demic to New Guinea and this en- demism could reach 90%. Of 2,770 species of orchids that have been registered. The researcher Wallace in the 19th century discovered a strong bio-geographic division in the Indonesian archipelago, and described a line that separates the world of the marsupial and the pla- cental mammals. Irian Jaya is influ- enced by the two worlds: with one side inhabited by the tree kanga- Key roo, while the majority of the am- Protected Areas phibians are of Asian origin. This is why the biological richness in this area is unique. In 1991 the area was included in the list of the National 0 2500 Kilometers Action Plan of Indonesia for Bio-

14 THE PROPOSAL

BASES FOR OIL to protect the environment. These EXPLOITATION IN laws, norms and statutes could be LORENTZ modified to adjust to new environmental needs and the social condi- Forest Law 41/1999 pro- tions, but always to the benefit of hibits mining (including oil ex- the Indonesian people. ploitation) in protected areas. The Indonesia is committed Amman Resolution of the iucn to the global conservation of pro- calls for the halt of any mining ac- tected areas and natural biodiver- tivity in protected areas under the sity through the ratification of the i-iv categories. In addition, the Convention on Biological Diver- iucn stipulated that all the natural sity, and accepts the Declaration places designated as World Heri- of Forest Principles, that are part * Elizabeth Bravo tage Sites should be “prohibited of the United Nations Forum on places”. Forests (unff). All the mining contracts In 1999 and at the local signed with the Indonesian Gov- level, the Legislative Council of ernment establish that the compa- Irian Jaya solicited the us oil com- nies should obey and implement pany pt Conoco to stop its explora- Indonesian laws, norms and stat- tion activities in Lorentz National utes - including those laws decreed Park..

PROTECTED AREAS IN THE WORLD

15 CHAPTER 1

NIGERIA: NO MORE The massive transfer of youths come to mind. A cursory OIL BLOCKS* public funds into private and cor- look at the other geopolitical zones porations hands is best described in Nigeria will reveal that youths as disaster capitalism. are just as restive in those parts as 1. Niger delta they are in the Niger Delta. Sec- communities: beaten by all ondly, whenever there is a pipeline sides The ‘benefits’ of disaster capitalism tragedy consequent upon a fire or to oil companies include: an explosion, most reports jump to the conclusion that pipeline van- The path of crude oil de- • Operating behind military dals were responsible. By these velopment has been strewn with shields as they have always done. ingrained constructs, the region skeletons and soaked in human This way the state apparatus of co- is now known as a volatile region blood across the world. The on- ercion does the dirty job and the oil where the unthinkable become the going case in Nigeria is a glaring companies involved can claim they expected. example. were not a party to the assault. It is time for us to calmly The usual assertion that • Refuse to pay adequate taxes reexamine ourselves and strive to Nigeria suffers from a resource unless publicly pressured. uncover where the rain began to curse may not be true because the • Make false declaration on the beat us. It is time for the Niger resource that we are endowed with amount of reserves they have in Delta to show the way in a collec- is a blessing rather than a curse. Nigeria, get punished elsewhere tive drive to reconstruct our re- Resource wealth does not neces- and stay happy and quiet in Nige- gional as well as national psyche. sarily have to subvert develop- ria with no questions asked. False This will start by our people un- ment. One would agree however declaration ultimately is nothing derstanding that the violence in that the scramble for the wealth but an exercise in self delusion. the Delta is a boom for merchants does subvert our collective ability • Be found guilty of bribing Ni- of crisis capitalism. The gun run- to resolve the conflicts into which gerian officials by investigators ners, the kidnappers, the ballot we are immersed. And this is pri- outside Nigeria, whereas no ques- thieves and those engaged in ille- marily because of the privatisation tions are asked in Nigeria where gal bunkering differ very little irre- of public funds generated through governments make plenty of noise spective of whether some of them the exploitation of these publicly about fighting corruption. are tagged Excellencies or Honor- held resources. • Declare that oil spills are caused able. In one short phrase, it is time The crisis situation can by sabotage even where there is no for us to regain our sovereignty best be seen as a result of interplay evidence to support such claim. and to ensure that our ballots de- of a web of interrelated factors, and And based on these spurious cide who holds the reigns of our not the result of a single determi- claims, such spills are left unat- government, who makes decisions nant. As an analyst put it, “While tended to. and how and when we want our re- most of the attention is often placed sources extracted. on local actors: the state/political We propose here that as elites, militia groups/warlords, and 2. High tide: the way climate change pushes the world weak and inept bureaucracies, very forward towards a cataclysmic brink, a ma- little attention is paid to the role of jor move is to tackle the trend at external and transnational actors Much of the violence ex- the root cause. The cost of doing and the lack of transparency that perienced in the Niger Delta has nothing is simply too high to con- shrouds the extent of their involve- been inflicted without any shot be- template. It is estimated that tem- ment in these conflicts.”1 ing fired. For example, whenever peratures in West Africa may rise 1 Obi, Cyril, Oil and Develop- the word restiveness is mentioned ment in Africa: Some Lessons from the by up to 4 degrees Celsius and that Oil Factor in Nigeria for the Sudan (Co- images of rampaging Niger Delta sea level rise is expected to lead to penhagen: DISS Report 2008:8: Oil De- after the Comprehensive Peace Agree- a loss of over half of the land of the velopment in Africa:Lessons for Sudan ment Edited by Luke Patey, 2007) p.14 16 THE PROPOSAL

Niger Delta by 2050. There will ment; the restoration of polluted be an increase in vector-borne dis- streams and lands; the recovery of eases as well as severe dislocations. our dignity will only come about With the downward march of the when we stand away from the desert, environmental refugees pull of the barrel of crude oil. Oil from the south and from the north blocks licensing has become a ba- will put extreme pressure on the zaar in Nigeria. Huge signing fees middle belt and raise new levels of are exchanged as though the play- crises. ers in the game were soccer or mu- Is there nothing that can sic stars. This signals the fact that be done? We recommend that Ni- there is something fundamentally geria openly discusses with commu- faulty about the entire enterprise. In a revolutionary manner groups nities in the oil belt on the question This is the time for all Nigerians that used to stand at antagonistic of what is to be done about further to demand that no more oil block ends are now coming together to extraction and their environment. should be given out for exploration confront the common challenge of While this consultation is going or for exploitation. Nigeria was environmental injustices in their on, there should be no new oil field richer through her great agricul- land. Wider alliances in this mold prospecting – a moratorium, so to tural produce before the ascendan- will help bring about our dream speak. This period will also allow cy of crude oil as the major foreign for true global democracy for hu- for a thorough auditing of the envi- exchange earner for the nation. man development, social justice ronmental despoliation visited on Crude oil brought about crude ac- and environmental justice. Our life the Niger Delta. A programme for tions in every realm of national life. and our future are in our hands. a clean up by the polluters should Besides, crude oil while oiling the also be agreed to at this time. The wheels of “development” is damag- * Nnimmo Bassey, e r a example of the demands of Ecua- ing the climate of the world and dor with regard to oil exploitation the psyche of her people. in the Yasuni national park is very We demand that the applicable to Nigeria and needs world takes the example of Ec- to be taken on board. Ecuador is uador and join with one voice to demanding that they should be demand the revolutionary step of compensated for keeping the oil in keeping g the oil in the ground the ground. The argument is that in order to rescue the world from by that action the release of Green the destructive path mapped and House Gases are blocked at source propelled by the fossil fuel mode since the fossil fuel is not brought of civilization. This major move up for use. This is true carbon se- makes both moral and economic questration and deserves to be ap- sense and every nation that takes it plauded as a bold step to wean the should be adequately compensated world from a steep and possibly for the positive contribution. fatal down-slope slide. e r a is making a mod- Decades of oil extraction est contribution in this regard by in Nigeria has translated into bil- teaming up with communities lions of dollars that have spelt noth- to facilitate the growth of a Host ing but misery for the masses of Communities Network. This the people. It is time for Nigeria to network erases the dichotomy step back and review the situation between communities that have into which she has been plunged. oil resources and those who bear The preservation of our environ- only the impacts of oil extraction.

17 CHAPTER 2

THE LEGAL Below, the different management 2. Huaorani Territory categories are described briefly: STRUCTURE OF (h t ) YASUNÍ NATIONAL PARK* 1. Yasuní National Park The Huaorani national- INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, ity was forced to contact the oc- INTANGIBLE ZONE, Yasuní National Park cidental civilization by the Sum- BIOSPHERE RESERVE… OIL was created in 1979, it had an area mer Institute of Linguistics (s i l ) TERRITORY? of 1,476,000 hectares between the and several oil companies, in 1958. Napo and the Curaray rivers. As Before this, the Huaorani lived in Yasuní is one of the the majority of the protected areas a wide area of territory approxi- most important regions of of Latin America, it was thought of mately 2 million hectares between the Ecuadorian territory. as a space without people. Howev- the Napo and Curaray rivers and It is the biggest protected er, it houses the ancestral territory from the foothills of the Andes to area of tropical rainforest of the Huaorani and has been ter- the borderline between Peru and in the country. Its size is ritory of some Kichwa populations Ecuador. Currently the h t has an 982,000 hectares (Yasuní for decades. These indigenous extension of 809,339 hectares in National Park). Its impres- groups were never taken into ac- the Napo, Orellana and Pastaza sive natural richness is account for the Parks’ planning. provinces (Lara et al 2002). knowledged as one of the 3 In 1990, due to pressures After this “pacific contact” greatest of the world. It also of the oil companies, the Park was period by the s i l , in 1969 the State is the area with the great- reduced to 625,000 hectares. At congregates them in a redoubt est tree density per hectare this time, a part of the y n p is ad- of 16,000 hectares known as the in the world. judicated to the Huaorani, with “Huaorani Protectorade” (Rival, the double purpose of vindicating 1996). Then in the year 1983, the However, the natural their fight to get back their terri- Instituto Ecuatoriano de Reforma richness is not the only aspect that tory but over all, to leave the way Agraria and Colonization (i e r a c )1 makes Yasuní so important. It is open for the oil companies. The adjudicated them an area of 66,570 also the birthplace of development adjudication specifies that the un- hectares including the Huaorani of different cultures throughout derground is property of the state Protectorate. However this docu- history and it’s the current home and the Huaorani could not opment was revised and rectified, of the Huaorani, Kichwas and pose to its exploitation. Therefore, during the development of the several indigenous peoples in iso- the entry of the oil companies de- Management Plan of the Huaora- lation. This is why the National pended only on a direct negotiation ni Territory (2002), changing it to Park conects with the Huaorani between them and the Huaorani 679,230 hectares, that after some Territori (h t ) and together they authorities (a completely unequal additional adjudications (includ- make up the Yasuni Biosphere negotiation and the accomplice ing the one in 2001) totals 809,339 Reserve (y b r ). Finally, an area absence of the government). hectares. superimposed to the latter, was y n p is managed by the It is important to men- declared with the name of Intan- Ministry of Environment of Ecua- tion that the Huaorani claim all the gible Tagaeri-Taromenane Zone dor, an entity that presents a lot of 1 The Agrarian and Colonization (i t t z ). Its purpose is to safeguard limitations on its budget and per- Reform, that i e r a c created, legalized the the development of the indigenous sonnel that makes its control and tenure of the land in favour of the ones who possessed and used the “tierras baldias” or groups in isolation (indigenous management not very effective. “abandoned” lands or those that did not people that are still resisting the have a legal owner. This law caused ter- occidental contact and live by their rible socio-economic and environmental traditions), the last ones in the Ec- consequences. However, it alowed the uadorian territory and one of the recognition of the ancestral possesion of lands of the indigenous and afro-ecuador- few that are still alive in the world. ian peoples (Lara et.al 2002). 18 THE YASUNI MODEL

y n p as their territory. They have a transition zone that promotes This has generated some settled next to the areas occupied the cooperation within external ac- comments because it is considered by oil companies. tors; all this established in a logic that this is a nonexistent category 3. Yasuni Biosphere of sustainability. y b r was declared of protection or that is not suffi- in 1989, however this area has not cient. In fact, the delimitation of Reserve been organized or managed ever. the i t t z was a very complex process that lasted more than 7 years The Biosphere Reserves are areas 4. Intangible Tagaeri – but it established geographical where an equilibrated relationship limits and gave the basis for an between the human being and Taromenane Zone (i t t z ) effective management. The total the environment is fomented and area of the i t t z is approximately shown. The biosphere reserves Although the word “in- 780,000 hectares. are recognized at the international tangible” can sound like an abso- The i t t z cuts through level in the framework of the lute prohibition of activities, the several oil blocks; this is why it Man and Biosphere program of i t t z only pretends to eliminate had a strong opposition from the u n e s c o . The Biosphere Reserves the possibility of any extractive or oil companies. The management try to promote a sustainable industrial activity. It is a protected of the area can’t be articulated yet, development, the biodiversity space of an exceptional cultural however its delimitation means the conservation and investigation as and biological importance where reduction of these oil blocks and well as its spreading. extractive activities aren’t allowed the prohibition to the oil compa- u n e s c o proposes that (oil, logging, mining, etc). The cat- nies to enter the conserved forests these reserves should have a Nu- egory of Intangible Zone was cre- of the Yasuní. It is also a legal sup- cleus Zone completely without ated as the last resource of the gov- port for the opposition to extrac- extractive activities; a buffer zone ernment, in the year 1999, through tive activities that are prohibited that protects the nucleus zone and an Executive Decree. by the Decree. It is important to make clear that the i t t z does not protect all the isolated indigenous people of the Yasuní. It only protects min- National Biosphere imally the space where they have moved with frequency. There are Park Reserve at least two more groups in isola- (1979) (1989) tion in the area besides the Tagaeri and Taromenane. There are strong signs of their presence in the oil blocks of the north part of Yasuni (specially in blocks 16, 31 and i t t ). YASUNÌ Some of them can be found cross- ing the border zone with Peru where they are also victims of the pressure of the extractive compa- Intangible Tagaeri and nies, especially the oil ones. All these categories re- Zone Taromenane flect the environmental, social and (1999) Territory cultural importance of Yasuní, a heritage of Ecuador and the World. * Eduardo Pichilingue, Ecociencia

19 CHAPTER 2

THE ISHPINGO- water from the surface, that moves other areas have failed in the Ecua- TAMBOCOCHA- oil from the fields to the wells. The dorian Amazon. TIPUTINI (ITT) hydraulic pressures are high and All Petroecuadors pro- PROJECT* decline slowly, so it allows them to posals suggest that there are going be maintained. to be several problems, especially The porous substrate has from the environmental point of view. Some of the expected prob- The project is lo- a good quality, and few waterproof lems are the management and des- cated in the eastern part of barriers such as clay and it is well tiny of the wastes, the excessive op- the Ecuadorian Amazon, it interconnected so the oil fluids timism in relation to the reserves, is constituted by the fields: and water move easily. Therefore, Ishpingo, Tambococha and these two fluids compete with each the lack of knowledge of the envi- Tiputini. It is the biggest other to reach the wells. ronmental impacts of the activity heavy oil discovery (14º However, because water and the technology which will be used. Due to the extraction costs, a p i ), after the Pungarayacu is 100 times less viscous than oil, as field. The block is inside time goes by, and sometimes very we can conclude that they are go- the Yasuni National Park fast, it leaves oil behind. Then the ing to use similar technologies as and partly inside the Intan- wells are converted into water pro- the ones that have caused the envi- gible Zone assigned to the ducers, so they have to be closed ronmental crisis in the existing oil Huaorani people. down. In the heavy oil fields and areas in Ecuador. groups of fields at least 30% of the There are oil activities The total volume of wells have been shut down because that are already affecting the Yasu- ni National Park, but the i t t Proj- original oil in place (o o i p ) discov- of this problem. There have been ect and block 31 are in the heart of ered reaches the 5,586 million bar- cases were in less than a month the the Park. rels (m m b l s ), with recoverable re- wells got full of water. In the two cases it is serves (n p r i m ) of 920 m m b l s , from This has happened, not crude oil between 14 and 15º a p i , which 607 m m b l s (66%) fall under after, but before the proven re- highly viscous. It is expected that the proven category and 313 m m b l s serves have been extracted, so oil the two blocks would have a wa- (34%) are unproven or to be discov- reserves stayed in the fields. It is ered. ter-to-oil ratio comparable to the foreseen that at least 20% of the one of block 16. In this block that reserves of Block 16 and the fields: relation is 90 barrels of water to 10 Eden-Yuturi, Indillama, Laguna Field Volume barrels of crude oil in average. This and Itaya from Block 15 are not go- means a great quantity of wastes Ishpingo South/ 3235 ing to be extracted due to the phe- that would be discharged into the North nomena mentioned above. environment. Tambococha– 2351 Crude oil from the i t t According to the Envi- Tiputini Project is more viscous than the oil ronmental Impact Assessment pre- Oil in site 5586 from Block 15 and 16, this is why sented by Petrobras for Block 31, Reserves 920 it is expected that water action the amounts of oil to be extracted OIL IN SITE AND RESERVES would be more severe. This consti- would reach its peak maximum at (Million Barrels) tutes the main thread to extract the 30,000 barrels a day, but in 18 years reserves of the i t t block. it will decline quickly to 3,000 bar- Theoretically it is pos- rels a day. The oil fields are sub-sat- sible to have control technology, According to Petroecua- urated because they have little gas however the few tries have not dor, in the i t t Project, the oil pro- dissolved in the oil. Their main en- been successful. The technology duction would stabilize at 108,000 ergy source is the constant input of that was applied successfully in barrels a day during the first 17

20 THE YASUNI MODEL

years and it will drop to 58 thou- In the Ecuadorian Ama- • Telemetric information and con- sand barrels per day 29 years after zon Region, the extractive offshore trol system s c a d a the project starts. technology has been adapted to its • Central production facilities lo- For both projects, the to- sensitive areas (the humid tropical cated outside the Yasuni National tal production would start with 20 forest). Therefore for the i t t proj- Park thousand barrels per day, reaching ect it has been foreseen: • Immediate Response Plan for its peak at 122 thousand barrels per operational contingencies with day in the fifth year, dropping to • Cluster perforation from 7 plat- aerial support. 59 thousand barrels per day in the forms that are constituted of 13 to In spite of the techno- year 29. 26 wells each, 113 wells in total. logical proposals, the weakness of Perforation of 20 wells for forma- the Environmental Ministry and tion water re-injection. other government agencies related • Artificial raising using electro- to conservation and culture, do not submersible pumps guarantee that the development of • Closed Oil and water treatment the i t t Project will fulfil with the systems constitutional requierements. • Transport of all fluids from the production platforms through un- * Fernando Reyes derground pipelines.

Ecociencia

21 CHAPTER 2

PREDICTABLE 1. Impacts of drilling tion, and as a result, massive forest IMPACTS OF THE OIL wells clearing increases the reflectivity of ACTIVITIES INSIDE the earth’s surface. The albedo effect is the increase in solar energy The oil industry recog- YASUNI* reflected towards outer space, and nizes that for every vertical well that is fundamental in the control of The opening of the is drilled, 500 cubic metres of solid waste and between 2,500 and 3,000 global warming. oil frontier, if the i t t proj- Texaco deforested up to ect is developed, would en- cubic metres of liquid waste are produced, while directional drilling five hectares of land to build a drill- tail the creation of a new ing platform. However, according oil industry zone, where leads to 20% to 30% more solid and liquid waste per well. to Executive Decree 1215 (Environ- the same impacts would mental Regulations for Ecuador- be seen as those that have If the plans to drill 130 wells in the i t t fields are carried ian Hydrocarbon Operations), the been well documented in maximum allowable in a protected already operational zones. out, this would create 65,000 cubic metres of solid waste (equivalent area today is 1.5 hectares for the in- to 13,000 dump truck loads of five stallation of a platform, camps and Those impacts can be summarized heliport. as follows: cubic metres each) and between 325,000 and 390,000 cubic metres If the platform contains of liquid waste (equivalent to more several wells, the regulations allow • Environmental impacts: pollu- than 65,000 dump truck loads). The for up to 0.2 hectares for each addition, deforestation, alteration of companies say this waste will be tional well. Then there is the defor- ecological relationships in ecosys- left beneath the drilling platform, a estation associated with the build- tems. mechanism through which toxic el- ing of access roads, which can be up • Economic impacts: loss of pro- ements are spread by the first rains. to five metres wide, as well as rights ductivity of self-sustenance econ- If the drilling is horizontal, the fig- of way for pipelines and transmis- omies. High costs of security, ures could rise to 78,000 cubic me- sion lines, camps, and other infra- maintenance, mediation and com- tres of solid waste (equivalent to structure. pensation. 15,600 dump trucks) and between The most significant de- • Social impacts: general dete- 420,000 and 504,000 cubic metres forestation is the indirect defores- rioration in the zone, alcoholism, of liquid waste (84,000 to 100,000 tation associated with the building violence, prostitution, disease. De- dump trucks). If the number of of roads for infrastructure mainte- struction of the social fabric. wells drilled is doubled, as per the nance and the colonization gener- • Political impacts: increase in con- Sinopec proposal, then the volume ated by the project itself. flicts in the region, state abandon- of waste would be doubled as well. ment, crossborder violence. It should also be taken 3. Impacts of produced • Cultural impacts: impacts in the into account that in terms of the life- lives of the local peoples, cultural time of wells, those that are used to water extinction. extract heavy crude tend to collapse rapidly, and in order to continue ex- Produced or formation In addition to these im- tracting the crude, new wells need water is a type of sedimentary water pacts, it is also necessary to con- to be drilled. that results from 150 million years sider the other impacts triggered by of natural processing and contains oil industry activity, such as the link 2. Deforestation very high levels of chlorides and between the building of roads and heavy metals. It can contain con- illegal logging -- as is the case in the Forests, water and cli- centrations of sodium chloride and logging activity in Yasuní National mate are closely linked. Mature for- other solids as high as 100,000 ppm Park and even in the so-called “un- ests capture water and maintain the (parts per million). By contrast, sea- touchable” zone – as well as coloni- balance of the ecosystem and local water can have concentrations of zation, tourism, bioprospecting and temperatures. Tropical forests ab- up to 35,000 ppm. other threats. sorb a large amount of solar radia- 22 THE YASUNI MODEL

This high salt content is to reinject the water, for a number Shushufindi fields that are already significant because it increases the of reasons. oversaturated from the discharge of solubility of other elements, includ- • 1. The reinjection of produced produced waters. But in addition, ing the radioactive element radium. water has been carried out in the the water that can be reinjected In addition, this water reaches tem- permeable strata of the geological will pollute the underground water peratures of 80°c.1 It also contains formations of Orteguaza and Ti- sources in this important reserve. particles of soluble hydrocarbons yuyacu, Napo, Hollín and others. Because of its composi- and the chemicals that are used to But these formations do not have tion, temperature and the chemicals separate the water from the oil and an unlimited capacity for storing all it contains, produced water that is to protect the drilling installations, of the water produced. brought to the surface is extremely such as demulsifiers, paraffin inhibi- • 2. The formations where the wa- toxic for the environment. Most tors, biocides and others. ter is reinjected contain faults and freshwater organisms cannot with- The average water-to- are not impermeable throughout; stand the high salinity of produced crude ratio in the Amazon region many reach the surface and are con- water, and subsequently die off. is 80 barrels of water for every 20 nected to underground and surface It is estimated that there barrels of crude oil extracted. This aquifers.3 are over 2,000 species of fish in the means that after 29 years of opera- rivers of the Amazon region, many tions, the accumulated production Moreover, if the water of which have yet to be identified, of crude oil would total 960 million production patterns are similar in addition to a wealth of other or- barrels, while the water produced to those seen in Block 16 (which ganisms that enable their existence with it would total 3.84 billion bar- is more structurally similar to i t t at the top of the food chain. They rels, or four times more. and Block 31), the water-to-oil ratio reproduce in the floodwater areas Produced water is al- would be 90 barrels of produced where food chains develop and the ready a problem for the state com- water for every 10 barrels of crude majority of Amazon fish species pany Petroecuador, which was pe- on average. As a result, the extrac- deposit their eggs. The toxins in nalized in 2005 after a report from tion of 960 million barrels of oil the produced water enter and pass the Comptroller General’s Office would lead us to expect 8.64 billion through the food chain until reach- determined that it failed to comply barrels of water. ing the final consumer: human be- with its established objectives for If we accept the assump- ings. reinjecting the water.2 tion that the i t t reserves contain At the same time, other However, the volume of 960 million barrels of crude oil, then animals living in the Amazon re- produced water will be much great- their exploitation would mean that gion, especially mammals, whether er in the case of the i t t project and 8,649 billion barrels of produced wild or domesticated, normally face Block 31, and given that the propos- water4 – a whopping 1,375,052,616 a shortage of salt. As a result, the als for developing the oil fields in- cubic metres – would be released highly saline produced water spilled volve reinjection, the company that into the environment. in the area will attract peccaries, undertakes the operations would The possibility of rein- deer and other animals, and when be faced with the problem of where jecting all of this water is unlikely if they drink this water, they will also not impossible, because of the vast ingest toxic substances. size of the formation that would be Contamination of the soil 1 The temperature of these waters reach the thermal gradient close to required. The water would inevita- can also lead to the strangulation the earths’ average, increasing 25 – 30ºC bly be discharged in Yasuní itself, of plant roots, thus damaging or in each 3-6 Km (Elder, 1981). These are the or, as has been proposed, in the many cases killing off nearby veg- depths at which oil exploitation happens. etation. The substances contained 2 Special Report of the General 3 idem in oil industry waste are often bio- Comptroller Department of the State, 4 This calculation is based on an accumulative and directly linked to April 12th 2005. Environmental Audit of average of 75 barrels of water for every 25 the Petroproduction Intervention in the barrels of oil, the figures that are used for numerous diseases, since they in- Processes of Oil Exploitation and Pro- heavy crude oil and applied to Block 16, clude carcinogenic, teratogenic and duction, related with fluids and perfora- the Eden Yuturi field or the crude oil op- mutagenic substances. tion mud and formation waters in the erations of a g i p , which have a geological * Esperanza Martínez, Oilwatch Orellana and Sucumbios Provinces. structure similar to the i t t field.

23 CHAPTER 2

THE BIODIVERSITY suní has 567 bird species recorded value as a protected area is exem- OF YASUNÍ: — 44% of the total found in the plified by the fact that it harbours Amazon Basin — making it among a total of 25 mammal species pro- NUMBERS AND the world’s most diverse avian sites. tected under c i t e s and/or listed as THREATS* Harbouring approximately 80 bat Endangered, Vulnerable, or Near species, Yasuní appears to be in Threatened, as well as many other This article is based the world’s top five sites for bat di- “species of concern” in groups such on a report made by leading versity. With 105 amphibian and 83 as amphibians, birds, and plants. scientists of Yasuní Nation- reptile species documented, Yasuní For example, the park is one of the al Park, and other tropical National Park appears to have the most important refuges for the Gi- researchers concerned for highest herpetofauna diversity in all ant Otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), the future of Yasuní, com- of South America. Yasuní also has a Critically Endangered species ing from Ecuador, Panama, 64 species of social bees, the high- within Ecuador and Endangered Peru, Denmark, England, est diversity for that group for any globally. The Giant Otters use a Germany, Greece, Scotland, park on the globe. Overall, Yasuní large part of the Tiputini River and Spain, and from across the has more than 100,000 species of watershed in Yasuní, and one of United States including insects per hectare, and 6 trillion the confirmed populations is very Puerto Rico. Together they individuals per hectare. That is the close to the construction zone of have well over 100 years highest known biodiversity in the the proposed Petrobras road. Ya- of experience conducting world. Most of these insect spe- suní also harbours the Amazonian research in the park. They cies are new to science, and many Manatee (Trichechus inunguis), have studied many aspects new genera are being discovered as another Critically Endangered of its biodiversity as well well. species within Ecuador that is Vul- as the impacts of the Max- Reflecting its biological nerable globally. We also find that us Road, which was built in uniqueness, World Wildlife Fund Yasuní is a site of scientific research 1994 into northwest Yasuní scientists have declared this region of national and international impor- for petroleum activities. one of the 200 most important in tance. Furthermore, this research is the world to protect. Yasuní also generating economic value for Ec- Yasuní National Park conserves one of the larger contigu- uador that could continue over the protects exceptionally high levels of ous tracts of the Amazonian rain- long-term. However, much of this biodiversity across many taxonomic forest, a broader region identified research depends upon the contin- groups. Scientists have document- as one of the world’s 24 wilderness ued protection of the park so as to ed both very high species richness, priority areas. Furthermore, Yasuní maintain its ecosystems relatively and very high numbers of species and adjacent areas are home to the undisturbed by humans. found within limited local areas. indigenous Huaorani, who have If Yasuní is strongly pro- Yasuní National Park protects a re- relatively uncontacted communities tected, it could be one of the few gion of extraordinary value in terms in the park. places to provide long-term protec- of its biodiversity, cultural heritage, Yasuní National Park tion to viable populations of thou- and largely intact wilderness. This has major global conservation sig- sands of Amazonian species in the region — the Napo Moist Forests nificance for the following reasons. region. Yasuní is in a section of the of the Western Amazon — has lev- The park is one of the few “strict Amazon predicted to experience els of diversity of many taxonomic protected areas” in the whole region minimal weather changes from groups that are locally and glob- of the Western Amazon (National global warming. The intact forest ally outstanding. For example, with Parks of i u c n Category i i ). Fur- that Yasuní protects will only in- an estimated 2,274 tree and shrub thermore, the broader Amazon as crease in conservation and scientific species, Yasuní protects a large a whole has been identified as one value as the surrounding forests are stretch of the world’s most diverse of the world’s 24 priority wilder- subjected to climate changes and tree community. In fact, there are ness areas. While only 8.3% of the are destroyed for agriculture and almost as many tree and shrub spe- Amazon currently falls within any other uses. cies in just one hectare of Yasuní’s type of protected area, Yasuní con- Yasuní National Park forests as in the entire United serves one of the larger contiguous is at the edge of one of 14 major States and Canada combined. Ya- tracts of this rainforest. The park’s deforestation fronts in the world. 24 THE YASUNI MODEL

The northern Ecuadorian Amazon Although Yasuní is sup- vation value of Yasuní in protect- is being deforested at a rate of ap- posed to be a “strict protected area,” ing Vulnerable, Threatened, and proximately 0.65% per year (40,000 research shows that the building of Endangered Species. The Maxus ha per year). At this pace, within the the Maxus Road into the park has Road and oil company activities are next 150 years, approximately 70% provided an entry point for migra- also causing substantial changes to of the region’s forest will be gone. tion, colonization, and deforesta- the Huaorani’s economic activities, Potentially irreversible impacts on tion. While rates for these activities diet, and culture. the region’s biodiversity can be ex- are slower within the park boundar- In sum, the negative im- pected much sooner due to habitat ies, they are still significant. Analysis pacts of roads have proven largely fragmentation and disproportion- of satellite images spanning the 10 uncontrollable in Yasuní National ate clearing of areas with better years since the road’s construction Park and surrounding forests. We soils. illustrate that, if present trends con- conclude that the oil development Roads are among the tinue, half of the forest within 2 km in i t t block will be a catalyst for main catalysts for the deforesta- of the road will be deforested with- migration, colonization, deforestation. A recent study suggests that in 50 years. Many farms and entire tion, illegal logging, and increased for every new kilometre of road towns have been constructed in the subsistence and illegal hunting in- built in the region, an average of 120 park along the road. Additionally, side Yasuní. There is no evidence hectares of forest are lost to agricul- on roads just to the north and west that any Oil Company will be more ture. Forests near Yasuní are under of Yasuní, there have been large- successful in controlling these oil- tremendous land use pressure as a scale deforestation and increasing associated impacts, as the underly- result. For example, the Canton of resource extraction, including ille- ing economic and social conditions Shushufindi lost 19.3% of its forests gal logging, which threaten to en- driving them are ongoing. Thus, between 1986 and 2001 croach on the park. the proposed oil development rep- While roads cause signifi- In addition, the Maxus resents a grave threat to the park’s cant direct harm to tropical forest Road has led to increased subsis- biodiversity and cultural heritage. wild flora and fauna, the secondary tence and illegal commercial hunt- We advocate enactment impacts of roads cause more seri- ing within the park. These and the of an Ecuadorian law prohibiting ous negative impacts over the long- other human activities that have road-building in national parks term. been introduced by the road are for resource extraction, so that the likely to be reducing the conser- parks maintain their biodiversity over the long-term. Significant revenues and employment are generated by the ecotourism lodges operating in the park’s buffer zone and by the national and international institutions conducting long-term scientific research in Yasuní. The continuation of these activities depends upon maintaining the park’s Original Forests biodiversity and natural ecology. While, at current extraction rates, the oil under Yasuní and its associated revenues will be gone within 50 years, the park itself and its species could serve as long-term economic resources for Ecuador if safeguard- ed from further road-building and associated impacts.

* Scientists concerned for the future of Yasuní. Group formed by Finding Forests Today Species. For a complete version of this report visit www.findingspecies.org 25 CHAPTER 2

TAGAERI AND plus. This vision alters the social TAROMENANE imaginary of aggressive savages PEOPLES: SOCIETIES that accompanied them for a long time. OF ABUNDANCE* The lack of knowledge of the culture and ways of life of the In order to discuss Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples the indigenous peoples of and other groups that remain in the Americas one must look voluntary isolation, lead us to make at the brutal colonialism comparisons with the traditional that subdued such peoples life of the Woadani. through genocide, expro- The Woadani people priation of their territories were considered hunters-gatherers and natural resources, and in a society which worked less than the destruction of their cul- ours, and instead of being con- tures, habits and ways of stantly fatigued, their search for life. food was intermittent, their leisure time abundant and the average The birth of the Ecuador- time of sleep per person during the day was superior to any other ian national state didn’t alter this Free Peoples, because through society. In spite of this, their food situation at all; on the contrary it their self-determination they have consumption was diverse and suf- reinforced the concept of “national refused make contact with the ficient. They ate for pleasure and territory” in the indigenous territo- dominant society. Their free choice to subsist1. ries, and at the same time negated to remain isolated from western In societies of abundance the rights of ancestral peoples. culture is, at the same time, a proof the ones who feed the rest do so via History tells us about the existence of the acknowledgement of their a cooperative agreement (sharing of numerous nationalities and even right of possession of the lands work shifts and sharing food); that indigenous empires that were ex- and territories that they occupy does not liberate the rest of the so- tinguished. Cultures such as the as well as their control over natu- ciety of any tasks. Tetetes have been lost forever due ral resources and the maintenance Societies of abundance to oil exploitation within their ter- and establishment of spiritual and are characterized by a low deliber- ritories. Anthropologists tell us cultural relationships with the en- ated production, “the people chose that the last Tetete was brought to vironment. not to produce at the maximum Quito to be “cured” and ran from The Free Peoples - the level. As unusual as it may seem the hospital to likely die as a va- Tagaeri and Terminate - could be from the western point of view, grant in the streets of the cold city. defined as societies of abundance. there is a conscious and coherent Indigenous peoples still According to the stories told by rejection of the idea of ‘maximum have their cosmo-vision and fight the Woadani elders, this people effort by the maximum number of openly to maintain their cultures - before their forced contact with people”, according to Sahlins, who over a dominant and violent soci- the Summer Institute of Linguis- adds: “The labour force is not to- ety that tries to corner them in the tics- had a group organization and tally used; technological means are jungle and not recognize their ter- a complex knowledge of the for- not completely employed; natural ritorial and human rights. est, enjoyed abundant leisure time, resources are notfully employed, The indigenous peoples satisfied their material and survival and production is low compared to of the Woadani family, the Ta- needs without much effort, didn’t existent possibilities. The workday gaeri, Taromenane and possibly work excessively, and voluntarily other groups, are known by their chose a subsistence economy with- 1 Sahlins Marshall en Economy Waorani brothers and sisters as Lessons from the stone age of Jerry out deliberately accumulating sur- Mander 26 THE YASUNI MODEL

is short. The number of free days and gatherers “it’s said that for mental licence was conceded to the is superior to workdays. Dancing, them being rich is a burden”. Their Brazilian oil company, Petrobras, fishing, playing, sleeping and cel- movement “quickly minimizes the to extract oil in block 31 the heart ebrating ceremonies seem to oc- satisfaction of property”. The Bar- of the Yasuni National Park - the cupy most of the”. Instead of using ret Oil Company on the frontier ancestral territory of these people. up their productive potential, these with Peru, gives the indigenous Once more, we are fac- communities decide to leave some peoples gifts such as combs, mir- ing the disproportionate appetite fruit in the ground and let some an- rors, blankets, necklaces, etc that of western civilization against a imals live in peace. Meanwhile, the is likely to make their mobility dif- contented culture of abundance people enjoy wandering, sleeping, ficult and in the long term will pro- that until now was the guardian dancing, flirting and participating pitiate their settlement – which is of one of the richest of the world’s in ceremonies and relationships precisely what the oil companies heritages. that make sense in these societies. want. What they do is consume the food The Tagaeris and * Natalia Bonilla, Acción Ecológica at a feast. “General sharing and Taromenanes deserve of the name communal banquets are character- Free Peoples. They should be istic of all the hunting and fishing respected and the State should societies”, says Freeman. Also, in provide them with the necessary these societies there are norms and measures so that they are not sanctions established to avoid the threatened by the outside incur- personal accumulation or storing sions of strangers. of resources and they have complex The Interamerican Court systems of social relationships of of Human Rights has established relatives that determine the chan- precautionary measures to obli- nels that the resources will follow gate the government of Ecuador to so that equanimity will prevail, take the necessary action to eradi- faced with the threat that unequal cate the direct threats facing the access to valuable resources will Tagaeri and Taromenane: the ex- mean2. traction of cedar and the invasions It seems that the approach of strangers on their lands. How- is this: because food is abundant it ever, illegal loggers today operate is not necessary to store it; nature within Tagaeri/Taromenane terri- does the storing itself in plants tory, and what is worse an environ- and animals, and one should know where to find them. Therefore, even if storms or accidents deprive the community of food for days or weeks the consequences are rarely disastrous as they can always move to another place. These peoples have thus freely chosen their nomadic condi- tion, so if they store or transport food they could become tied to only one place or they would have to move a lot slower. Sahlins comments that in the case of hunters 2 José Manuel Naredo Universi- dad Politécnica de Madrid

27 CHAPTER 3

IS THERE ECONOMIC the profit for each barrel of oil. It is ferent criteria, and alternative sce- SENSE IN of interest, also, to know the partici- narios can be constructed. The LEAVING THE OIL pation of the State in these earnings, discount rates can vary between and if any association with a foreign 6% and greater values that include UNDERGROUND?* company has been considered to risks, with the rates of earnings of form a mixed company. In this way the oil monopolies rising to annual The Ecuadorian one could calculate the earnings values of 20%. government has decided to that the State would receive in the In this way, one could evade oil exploration in the future for the exploitation of the oil. calculate the present value of the i t t area situated within the These values, however, State´s earnings if the oil were ex- Yasuni National Park, by would only be valid for a short time. tracted. This activity, however, also soliciting the international In the case of the i t t fields, five implies grave environmental, social community for compensa- years would be required to build the and cultural impacts that should be tion of at least 50% of the needed infrastructure and produc- taken into account when analyzing profits it would receive if it tion would last 13 years before the the advantages and costs of oil ex- exploited the site. How do declining phase would start. How traction to society, although these we discover the amount of can future income that will be re- effects - called externalities - don’t this compensation? What ceived years from now be estimated reduce the monetary income of the variables do we need to de- using current values? To make this State. termine it? comparison, an annual discount The externalities are nu- rate is employed for each year in the merous and affect nature as well as First, we need to know future. This rate reflects the possi- different social groups. The burn- what oil reserves exist. Accord- c o bility of increasing current capital ing of petroleum produces 2 and ing to the most recent i t t studies, in the future (at a risk-free interest worsens global warming, affecting 842 million barrels of crude oil is rate) as well as the inherent risks to the whole planet. The deforesta- likely to exist. However, the real different economic activities. tion resulting from oil extraction magnitude of the reserves is not yet Various discount rates activity generates the same effect known. Second, there´s the need can be employed according to dif- and also drives species to extinction to estimate the costs of production. Various methods exist to extract oil, each with different environmental impacts. The costs may differ at various times during the progress, as well as when the reserves begin to run out. The profits obtained by exploiting the oil deposits depend mainly on the price of oil, which in the last few years has risen rapidly to almost $100 a barrel. However, the prices could change and even fall in the next years as a result of the change in technology and in the mitigation of global warming. Original When a variable like the future price ecosystems in of oil is uncertain, one can consider Ecuador different scenarios. If the costs and prices were known, one could determine

28 BEYOND THE VALUE

and causes the loss of biodiversity. mosphere. One could also calculate rate if we value more the indefinite There also exist negative impacts the non-logging activities within preservation of nature, biodiversity, on indigenous cultures that dwell in the forest and the employment and resources such as our water and the oil fields, the loss of alternative and incomes that would be lost by climatic stability. economic activities such as tour- not developing activities such as Initial estimates of costs, ism and non-logging activities in eco-tourism. Criteria also exist, al- profit and externalities have been the forest, as well as the harmful ef- though imperfect, to estimate the done for the i t t Block in Ecuador. fects of oil spills, accidents, and the loss of biodiversity, the damage of It found that the present value of spread of toxins associated with oil oil spills, and associated diseases. the State’s earnings from oil exploi- production. If one looks for oil exploitation reaches $5.747 billion with Many of these externali- tation’s advantages for society, the an annual discount rate of 6%, and ties are immeasurable and impos- externalities of the income of the $2.929 billion with an 11% discount sible to economically quantify. State should be deducted. One can rate. The externalities studied, How much is the loss of a human also distinguish between the exter- which represent only part of the life worth, the disappearance of an nalities that principally affect the lo- total, reach $1.247 billion and the c o i t t indigenous culture or the extinc- cal or national population and those costs of the 2 emissions from tion of a species? In spite of this, it that affect the entire planet such as oil would equate to 375 million tons c o is important to at least estimate the 2 emissions and the loss of biodi- - equivalent to at least $1.684 bil- economic value of some of the neg- versity. lion. The required compensation ative impacts of oil exploitation.. The future externalities fund is estimated at approximately One could find out, for example, should also be converted to their $2 billion which covers 50% of the the negative cost of global warming present value using a discount rate. possible earnings Ecuador would c o from each ton of 2 emitted, or the This rate can be lower than the cur- receive from the exploitation of the c o cost of eliminating 2 from the at- rent economic value of the interest oil. These figures could change according to different hy- potheses over future prices of oil, discount rates, and the application of new technology, among other variables. We may conclude, therefore, that the option of keeping i t t oil underground would benefit the international community by reducing climate change, preserving biodiversity and supporting the subsistence of indigenous cultures - all at a lower cost than the damage the oil extraction would produce on a planetary scale. Ecuador would also benefit by obtaining compensation capital, whose interest would per- Remaining mit a sustainable future to be built. ecosystems in Ecuador, 1996 * Carlos Larrea, Universidad An- dina Simón Bolívar

29 CHAPTER 3

THE HIDDEN COSTS the economic and tech- OF PETROLEUM* nological strategic po- INSECURITY, AN OIL- sition of oil exporting BASED ECONOMY countries, something AND ECONOMIC that the developed OBSOLESCENCE countries are only too aware of. During the last “A developing coun- five years, governments try can ill-afford to ignore and companies in the its oil resources, espe- G8 countries have no- cially when various needs ticeably increased their remain unsatisfied. Petro- efforts to ensure “eco- leum revenues provide the nomic independence necessary capital to reach and energy security” af- millennium targets or to ac- ter year 2030. This pur- celerate economic growth. pose has recently been Furthermore, since petro- included, for example, leum production will cease in the Energy Policy to be profitable within a few Act 2005 and in the Ad- years, it is best to extract vanced Energy Strategy the resource as quickly as (2006). possible to benefit from cur- More specifi- rent high prices”. Phrases with a petroleum society. More- cally, the task of increas- such as these are repeat- over, persisting with extractive ac- ing a country’s energy security ed endlessly as an evident tivities implies increased financial means switching from oil consump- truth. But is it? costs and detrimental social effects; tion to consumption of other forms the results of market flaws inherent of energy. The transition to post Like any other activ- in the petroleum industry, one of carbon capitalism not only implies ity, the petroleum industry has is which is the perseverance with mo- using new fuels. Constructing “low “costs” that do not, as a rule, appear nopolist structures and behavior. petroleum consumption” societies in the impact indicators that mea- Compounding the problem is the presupposes dismantling all those sure the short-term performance of tendency for extractive activities to public and private activities that an extractive industry. These costs encourage political decisions that, rely on, or are related to, petroleum are generally related to trade-offs while benefiting a selected few un- extraction. of which the ruling and ruled are der the guise of favoring the major- If the capitalist civiliza- usually unaware since the obvious ity, appropriate public resources tion is to be “decarbonized”, the effects are neither immediate nor that could be used for alternative requisite public decisions will cre- direct. Such hidden costs include purposes, such as promoting small- ate conflict with those economic the “cost of a decision”. scale agriculture. agents incapable of effortlessly and What are we talking So who should be con- quickly adapting to the new condi- about? Maintaining an economic cerned about this cost? Everyone, tions. However, although conflict activity involves creating social including those who are usually brings few rewards for politicians, relationships and organizational only concerned about short-term especially those seeking re election, structures to underpin operations. gain. Regardless of the possible governments and executives in the Therefore, continued petroleum disastrous environmental conse- most developed countries have al- extraction means continuing to quences, the insistence on petro- ready embarked on the necessary promote the forms of production, leum extraction will undermine measures since the consequence of consumption and life concomitant

30 BEYOND THE VALUE

inaction is even worse, with tech- evident by year 2020, the horizon is population’s standard of living will nological obsolescence and eco- still a long way off. increase. This, unfortunately, has nomic stagnation being two of the In undeveloped coun- not been the case. As has become principal outcomes. tries, since companies and gov- abundantly clear in Ecuador, a se- As the 21st century ad- ernments will of necessity incur lected few have dined on the fruits vances, those companies and costs and subsidies, revenues from of the petroleum boom without families stubbornly clinging to pe- petroleum activities will be insuffi- managing any effective redistribu- troleum will become increasingly cient to even cover the “Hartwick tion of the social wealth. Notwith- vulnerable. Given the physical at- rule”. That is, petroleum revenues standing government declarations, tributes of heavy crude, its extrac- invested in other, non petroleum this has been the norm since 1970. tion will cease to be economically activities will be insufficient to Can we expect any substantial viable. Although extraction will maintain long-term economic changes in the future? Unlikely. undoubtedly continue once its eco- growth, and this excludes the net The “curse of natural re- nomic downturn begins, costs will energy balance! sources” has turned out to be an inexorably rise inversely to the eco- At the same time, every expression that sums up the de- nomic benefits. country will begin a race to shift the ployment of petroleum resources All countries, even the energy adjustment cost. In a world to finance economically unproduc- most financially powerful, are sub- where globalization perpetuates tive expenses. The fiscal waste is, ject to budget restraints. There- inequalities between nations, the nevertheless, the tip of the iceberg. fore, even in times of abundance, country that modifies its structures Leaving aside the financial squan- disposable funds never stretch to and economic-environmental pro- dering in economically undevel- satisfy all the demands, particu- cess quickest will be best placed to oped countries with precarious larly those of declining industries. “transfer” its losses to other coun- democracies, petroleum extraction Within twenty years, oil produc- tries. So, even though the United has been a major cause of under- tion will only be able to continue if States will continue to rely on fos- mining the public good. As a con- society is committed to maintain- sil fuels up to year 2030, the coun- sequence of oil, the business elites ing and increasing the subsidies try’s geo political business is being and multinational corporations this activity will require. And if this conducted with two objectives in have been able to gain control of option loses its economic rationale mind. On the one hand, it is slowly the State, thereby guaranteeing ap- among the developed countries, converting to other forms of en- propriation of the common wealth. what would be the logic for those ergy, while on the other hand it Through their own efforts, these countries overwhelmed with un- continues to maintain third world interest groups have converted the satisfied needs of continuing to oil suppliers: those countries per- State into an administrator, un- produce oil? severing with their old line of busi- equally distributing the advantag- The outlook for the ness, namely offering oil and raw es accrued from a natural resource. private sector is broadly similar. materials to developed countries. The outcome is that “black gold” Companies will find that the drop In the case of the unde- has done very little for the welfare in demand for petroleum and its veloped countries, their adherence of the most needy. derivatives will become ever more to oil exploitation has caused addi- By obstinately continu- marked, even for those countries tional damage: the deterioration of ing with oil extraction, all those po- that doggedly decide to stick with public policy conditions and capac- litical economic factors that have the black fuel. So oil executives ities. In what way? For decades, as contributed to the frailty of the will begin to question the logic of part of their dissertation aimed at under developed countries have continuing to specialize in offering fanning the public’s expectations been merely perpetuated, thereby goods and services that are increas- in the oil exporting counties, gov- weakening democracy and exacer- ingly substitutable. It could be ar- ernments and multinational com- bating inter generational and intra gued that though these trends in panies have insisted that crude will generational inequity. demand will become obvious and constitute the means whereby the

31 CHAPTER 3

During the 21st century, vention and long term planning, an developed countries. Persevering humanity will witness unprec- attitude can be succinctly summed with oil exploitation is just the first edented transformations. Forms up with the phrase: “What’s good step our countries take on the road of social organization and econo- for the North is no good for the to misery, and energy insecurity is mies, underpinned with energy de- South”. just one of the effects. In the ab- rived from intensive use of fossils, While the more industri- sence of changes in decision taking will change. The “wealth of the na- alized countries outline their strat- processes and growth strategies tions” will depend on the way this egies to ensure their predominance based on petroleum, Ecuador will transition is handled. In public pol- in the “new globalization wave”, the remain trapped in a reduced “po- icy terms, the transition to post pe- undeveloped countries continue to litical space” that encourages the troleum societies presupposes the receive advice as to how to main- reproduction of energy intensive creation of processes whereby the tain their umbilical cord linked to economies but with inefficient en- local and multinational pressure the old carbonic capitalist system. ergy usage. The environmental groups – both public and private – And when they do it, the inter- consequences of this ruse are obvi- who are keen to see a continuance national financial institutions ap- ous: increased environmental deg- of the energy status quo, are taken plaud their good practices! radation. But who knows what the out of the game. Strategic systems are, social consequences will be? The current situation is first and foremost, socio techno- Various alternatives ex- analogous to the anti cyclical ecological systems. The transforma- ist to counteract such irrationality. nomic policies of the structural tion of social relationships is, then, Although perhaps not the best op- adjustment period. The developed invariably a slow process. The lon- tion from the ecological perspec- countries would seem to have little ger it takes to undertake a transi- tive, setting up a “petroleum fund” interest in seeing the undeveloped tion, the greater will be the energy could be a solution when faced countries adopting policies of pre- gap between poor countries and

OIL PRODUCTION IN THE WORLD

32 BEYOND THE VALUE with the obstinacy and indifference economic recession or a banking to preventing the private exploita- of the elites. crisis. tion of the national patrimony, the During the past few de- In the undeveloped coun- final years of petroleum production cades Norway, Canada, Alaska, tries, given the scale of the current could turn out to be the first years Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, East misery, any inter generational sav- of a silent but powerful transforma- Timor, Chad, Sao Tome, Princ- ings may pay no heed to the suf- tion: towards a population benefit- ipe and Papua New Guinea have fering of the current generation. ing from improved welfare and in- implemented various institutional The mechanism could, therefore, creased capacities. With a healthy plans to avoid oil revenues being be modified to favor the major- and educated population, capable squandered through the short ity - that is “swapping oil for life”. of managing its own destiny, the term policies of those who hap- In the absence of the coalition of undeveloped countries will create pen to hold power at that moment. forces required to suspend petro- the basic conditions for compen- The resulting “natural resource leum extraction, efforts should be sating the next generation for their revenues” represent obligatory sav- undertaken to arrive at a social current addiction to petroleum. ings mechanisms whereby, in or- agreement whereby the last drops der to avoid current consumption of this costly resource are used to of the common patrimony, govern- finance public, health and educa- * Juan Fernando Teran, Universi- dad Andina Simón Bolívar ments are only permitted to use oil tion services. revenues in specific circumstances. In this way, besides map- Such may include a large balance ping out the transition towards a of payments deficit, a prolonged post carbon society and in addition Mapas Manuel Pallares 77% OF OIL CONSUMPTION IS CONCENTRATED IN 20 COUNTRIES

30,0

25,0

20,0

15,0

10,0

5,0

0,0 s d m a e ia ia n n o ds a zil da n a bia ore rea do i nc any es ic ssi ain tralia na Ir x Ko s Bra rm Ind on Sp ailan Ch Fra Japa Me erlan Ru i Ara gap d State Au Ca th Th Ge Ind ud Sin uth d Kingite Ne Sa So ite Un Un

33 CHAPTER 3

THE VALUE OF THE OIL IF LEFT UNDERGROUND*

On September 24, 2007 President Rafael Cor- rea presented to the Gen- eral Assembly of the United Nations a proposal of great economic and symbolic importance. Through it, Ecuador, in order to dem- onstrate its commitment in the fight against global warming, consigns to keep intact the oil reserves of i t t - the country’s principal oil field located in the Yasuni region –in one of the richest biodiversity regions in the world. In compensation for not exploiting its riches, the country asks to be sym- bolically compensated by the international community through funds that would be equal to half of the market value of the oil.

The implications of the proposal may be assessed in two ways. First, the economic compo- nent, the generosity of Ecuador - a poor country with many needs in financial terms - in renounc- ing the resources that could benefit its own population in the short term, in favor of the well-being of the planet for future generations: for indigenous, Ecuadorians and non-Ecuadorians alike. Gener- osity expressed in the name of a people who sacrifice their own immediate interests if the gesture is echoed by people in other parts of the world. However, we must also consider that such generosity

34 BEYOND THE VALUE is not founded on the basis of eco- the photosynthesis of solar radia- in this region who don’t want to nomic calculations because it goes tion necessary in the operation. see their ancestral territories dev- farther than that—which is clearly Chadenèdes accepted astated by the exploitation of the demonstrated in President Cor- the challenge and a year later pre- oilfields. Or maybe we would dis- rea’s words when he affirms that sented his study showing that if cover that this value doesn’t have a “the Ecuadorian proposal seeks to nature had to pay for the waste of price because although it could be transform old conceptions of the pressure, heat and time needed for calculated, it is immeasurable. economy and the concept of value.” the exploitation of oil at the retail So, we need to make clear It is here where the other compo- prices paid by us in the produc- what President Rafael Correa has nent is shown. tion of goods, the cost would be done in a bold move through a In effect, as Rafael Cor- much more than a $1 million per concrete proposal for his country rea says, “It’s about inaugurating gallon. Nevertheless, according - whose principal richness is pre- a new economic logic for the 21st to Buckminster-Fuller, the major- cisely the oil - in the process of cre- century, where one compensates ity of U.S. residents go to work in ating a vision for the future that no the creation of value, not only the automobiles, probably using four other current leader has the desire creation of merchandise.” Or that gallons daily. In the words of the to imagine. Now it just remains to it’s necessary to consider all the inventor: “Each one spending daily be seen if the international commu- “externalities” (everything socio- four million real dollars in terms of nity will show sensitivity toward economic) that are excluded when the physical-cosmic universe, with- the majesty of little Ecuador. economists calculate the changing out producing a single item in favor value of merchandise and fix their of the life of the physical universe prices. So if the creation of value that can be accredited in the count- * Laymert García Dos Santos were effectively calculated in its able metabolic system of time and totality, the irrational character energy that eternally governs the of our mode of production would regulation of the universe.” be exposed in all its fragility, also So, with the calcula- showing the absurdity of Western tions of Chadenèdes and the ob- consumption. Along these lines, servations of Buckminster-Fuller and to have an idea of the scope of brought to light, we should reflect the problem, it’s worth the effort to upon Rafael Correa’s proposal in evoke an insight of Richard Buck- not thinking of the creation of val- minster-Fuller: the attempt to ue as the creation of merchandise. know how much it “costs” nature to If we at least glimpse the value of produce petroleum, the nonrenew- change, and if we comprehend the able source of energy which when real scope of our conduct, maybe burned causes global warming. we would discover that by not ex- In his book Critical Path, ploiting the oil from Yasuni-i t t as the U.S. author explains how he economic value, the Ecuadorian asked the distinguished geologist, government recognizes the exis- François de Chadenèdes, to write tence of a greater value, whose con- him a guide differentiating how sideration should be mentioned at the technology of nature behaves the same time as the protection of in the exploitation of petroleum, the global climate, the well-being and how the quantity of energy of humankind, the protection of employed (such as heat and pres- the tropical forest, and - in the in- sure) is translated into economic terests of the nation - the demand values, as well as the time spent for by the indigenous communities

35 CHAPTER 3

THE INVISIBLE troleum companies in rituals of vio- to the altars of the fatherland in the IMPACTS* lence that history has hidden. Tens military academies and justified of indigenous women were raped, them in the name of all the country, Today, climate by groups of 5, 10 or 50. Without while in the gridded land plots the change is a secret to no scruples and without being pun- tractors pulled out 80% of the veg- one. When waters flood the ished, after beating the husbands etation so the farmers and ancient cars of the first world, when or poisoning them with alcohol, the cultures were expelled, while they droughts destroy Africa, petroleum companies carried out, exploited the work force of those their way, the new ‘meeting’ of the who didn’t have any more to lose when Katrina washed away cultures. except their lives, which weren’t ap- New Orleans and the gla- In the style of neo-colo- preciated much either. ciers disappear, it is admit- nization, paths were opened that The opened paths contin- ted that the consumption of announced the progress of the pe- ue to be controlled by the oil compa- fossil fuels has impacts…. troleum companies that rose them nies with their armed paramilitary but who speaks of the impacts of their production? IMPACTS OF OIL Who in the silent agree- REVENUES ments against hundreds AND EXPLOITATION IN ECUADOR and thousands of commu- PRODUCTION nities throughout the entire world where the extraction POLLUTION of oil is associated with the most grave violations of hu- DEFORESTATION man rights? Climate change is evidence, but the hidden part of this iceberg that no one watches still remains to TONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE be seen.

The petroleum compa- COLONIZATION AND DISPLACEMENT nies in Ecuador receive large, OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES 200,000 hectare land plots in the Amazon to extract the oil from, which they then take control of. The 103 REPORTED CASES OF VIOLATIONS OF WOMEN entrance into indigenous territories to pillage their resources has been a PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGES AND CORRUPTION constant in the petroleum industry in Ecuador. The teams of workers MISSING PEOPLES: TETETES Y SANSAHUARI that have carried out the drilling not only deforested many hectares of land where its straight line was set LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY against the organic nature of the rivers, the plant textures or the cleanli- ness of the sound. The detonation 500 CANCER DEATHS teams broke the silence, scared the fleeing animals and changed the fantasy of the ayahuasca to the vileness of the alcohol. The indigenous communities, forgotten by the states, were confronted by pe- 36 BEYOND THE VALUE

forces (almost always ex-militaries) meters from the houses of the coun- ther down the rivers, killing more that control spaces, movements, try people that live their lives dying, and more. These same rivers that identities and intentions and break oblivious to the risk. little by little, take in more death, the country people’s fences when Then the oil runs like and also end up taking in more technology tells where one should blood through steel veins that has shame, because the country peo- drill and reduce almost to nothing been filtered in stations that, like a ple’s protest ends by being flooded the sacrosanct base of the western liver, cleans it of unwanted chemi- by the threat of military rifles. The civilization, the propriety, that when cals and results in revolting gases fiery protests aren’t valued, just the it doesn’t belong to a corporation, it burned upon leaving, hot and yel- indignant humiliation to keep drink- doesn’t have the same right than if it lowish, of impossible continence. ing and cooking, knowing that with sustained a community. Methane gases that since the begin- each glass the death is making itself The wells being drilled, ning have caused the greenhouse more present, so present at 50 me- like a finger down the throat, vomit effect, sulfurous stenches that in the ters away that 57% of the detected their repulsion into uncontrollable humid environment of the Amazon cases of cancer are of people living pools. Thousands of tons of toxic are transformed into sulfuric acid, at this distance. waste, from 3,000 to 8,000 barrels that enters the lungs and begins Nobody speaks of these per well, with more than 1,500 wells to destroy them, and sprinkles the uncontrollable hemorrhages, the drilled, were dispelled in pools that earth with acid, so that nothing steel veins subjected to hyper- couldn’t contain the expulsion and flowers, to mark their territory like production that blow out at first broke into the pristine rivers of the animals, and in these gases the dan- sneeze, but are then blamed on the region. The latest technology for ger is thousands of times underesti- country people. Nobody pursues protected areas maintains that they mated and whose trails have been those who steal the tubes right are buried in the same platforms as measured at more than 25 kilome- under the noses of the military, let- the wells, covered without isolat- ters away, while the people live un- ting the blood spill out. Nobody ing the sand and rocks that drain knowingly 50 meters away. speaks of the enormous contracts into the rivers. Uranium, radon, The putrid urines, loaded that companies with names and last radium, in unknown quantities…. with arsenic and saltier than the names obtain for cleaning the spills heavy metals with sure toxicity, 50 Dead Sea, are going farther and far- that they themselves provoke, but blame on the country people. No- Countries and regions contribution to global warming body speaks of the dead children at birth because their first breath was Africa Canada full of the plague brought by the oil 3% 2% Australia Middle East spills. 1% 3% No, the deaths in the name of development remain bur- Japan USA ied without a plaque. In Ecuador 4% 29% the machines don’t stop when in Latin America the construction of the Paute hy- 4% droelectric plant the cement gulped SEA, China, India down the workers. In Sucumbios 12% and Orellana the deaths from the petroleum are also buried in oblivi- on, though there are more than 500, many more than have died in the last wars in the country. But when the deaths always fall on the same Russia side, it isn’t called war, it’s called 14% genocide.

Europe * Acción Ecológica 28%

37 CHAPTER 3

GLOBAL WARMING*

Global warming isn’t just a rise in temperature - it’s a combination of physical, ecological and social changes, all related to each other and caused by centuries of exploitation of the earth’s resources. In this neo-liberal era, the model of growth, globalization and over-consumption has reached a critical point. The result is the destruction of ecosystems and the impoverishment of billions of human beings in developing countries.

In 2007, the world experienced a series of grave climatic events that broke records - even compared to 2006, which itself had broken various records: extreme heat in many parts of Europe and torrential rainfall in other parts; flooding and snowfall in South Af- rica; floods in Asia; and landslides in China and Australia. Hurricane Gonu devastated southern Iran; crops were lost across the globe; and the glaciers thawed even more… However, although this is a global problem, there hasn’t been a global effort in confronting these disasters. A profound injustice exists in the relation between the causes and effects of climate change. Those countries enriched by processes of colonization and unequal trade have been those which have caused the problem after decades of excessive emission of greenhouse gases. The impoverished countries, on the other hand, are those most affected by climate 38 BEYOND THE VALUE

change and those which are most ing by more than half as it should. Mature forests, which impacted by hurricanes, floods, Research indicates that in the ice have the most plants per unit area, famine and disease. What is worse age the concentration of carbon maintain the equilibrium of the is that the so-called solutions to dioxide was at 280 ppm (parts per ecosystem and local temperatures climate change assume new prob- million) – it is currently at 382 ppm. by capturing water. The tropical lems and threats. It is thought that when it reaches forests absorb large quantities of Such disasters are more 450 ppm, life as we know it will be solar radiation, induce the emer- severe in the South because that threatened. gence of clouds, and reflect solar c o is where the environment and The 2 emissions are energy back towards outer space ecological cycles are being dra- fundamentally due to the burning - a fundamental effect in the con- matically altered by intensive re- of fossil fuels in transportation, trol of climatic warming. In the source extraction projects. To this industry and food production cou- tropical forests, the presences of is added the fact that the poorest pled with the destruction of forests. pseudomonas and areogenes in populations are pushed toward In 2006, every 24 hours 83,719 bil- epiphytes accelerate the process of high-risk zones, raising the like- lion barrels of oil were consumed evapo-transpiration. These bacte- lihood for them to be victims of and 81.663 billion barrels of oil ex- ria act as hydroscopic nuclei that environmental catastrophes. The tracted. This equals 33,487 billion condense the clouds. Epiphytes difference in impact between the tons of emissions over the course grow in mature forests and can North and South is measured by of a year. And the most incredible raise the capacity of producing the number of deaths, displaced aspect is that a large part of these condensation nuclei by 500%. people, destruction of homes and fossil fuels were extracted or are Clouds are fundamental other permanent destruction. In projected to be extracted in zones in filtering out solar rays, retaining the last years, climatic disasters of mature forest, which are proven the capacity to reflect solar radia- have cost the lives of some 3 billion to have a cooling effect on the at- tion by up to 30%. This is known people across the planet, harmed mosphere. as the albedo effect. The solar rays 800 million more and caused over Climate change--brought that make it to earth are what de- $23 billion worth of damage. Of all on by the burning of fossil fuels-- termine the warming of the atmo- this, 90% occurred in developing and the planet’s capacity to cool it- sphere. countries. self with its cloud cover, is the new The most immediate The concentration of car- map of inequality and reveals the consequences of the destruction of bon dioxide in the atmosphere at a undercurrent of an unsustainable the forests are changes in rain pat- global level is annually increasing development model. terns. The ground, upon being ex- at a rate of 3% instead of decreas- posed, dries out. This brings about a snowball effect that affects every Greenhouse gases responsible for global warming connection within the ecosystem. The differences in temperature in Nitrogen oxide 6% forest zones that have been clear- cut and those that have not is high. This is not just an issue of shade -

Methane 24% there can be a difference of as much as 15 degrees Celsius between the two. Eliminating oil extraction operations in mature forests is the first measure in confronting climate change.

Carbon Dioxide 70% * Esperanza Martínez, Oilwatch

39 CHAPTER 4

OIL AND THE that was cheap and light and oil World War II heralded GENESIS OF met this need. It became the core oil globalisation. Chemical indus- THE CAPITALIST of the technical revolution when tries and the armies needed oil not the train appeared followed by the only for their production of explo- CIVILIZATION* automobile, plane and rocket. sives and arms but also other materials such as plastics and synthetic In this brief article The use of oil and the de- fibers that were quickly employed we seek to outline some velopment of petrochemicals were, across the board, such as nylon, p v c milestones of the history during the first three decades of and polyethylene. The use of plas- of oil exploration to under- the 20th century, tied to the au- tic expanded to pipes, hoses, discs, stand the central place that tomobile, marine and aeronautic coating for floors, construction of oil has had in the consti- industries. The development of appliances and synthetic installa- tution of modern capital- the automobile industry was a pro- tions due to its resistance to chemi- ist civilization. Petroleum cess that mainly belonged to the cal products. Plastic was also used became the heart of social United States’ oil companies. The for different domestic products as life when it was converted articulation of these areas of indus- well as for clothing and military ac- into the nucleus of produc- try is fundamental for the creation cessories such as parachutes. tion and consumption of the of what we know now as produc- When World War II was 20th century. Nowadays, tion and consumption oil model. over, the devastated world was re- this resource is defining the It is very important to say that this built by oil. The United States in- historical crossroads of the was driven from the beginning by dustries were less affected by war 21st century global world. private U.S. capital that marked compared to the European and So- the guidelines of the unstoppable viet ones, and was able to alter its Before the modern and advance of capitalist civilization military industry into one directed capitalist use of oil, it was used in throughout the world. to consumers. Therefore, plastics diverse ways. The Greeks created The technical-scientific and cars expanded throughout the a sort of flame thrower to burn system of this civilization had a world market and the growing ur- Persian ships, giving it a similar sort of second industrial revolu- ban life. use as the Hittite army had some tion driven by the World Wars. A The economic boom of years before. During the same pe- geopolitical re-adaptation of the the United States that happened riod, in the Middle East, oil drains same system and its new require- after the war allowed it to build were ritual places for a lot of popu- ments was needed. Wars made oil an empire across the world market lations. In the same way, in the the principal element of what the that was materially supported by Americas many cultures used it; civilization is today, introducing it the oil model of the industry and in for example in Ecuador it was used little by little in diverse key areas of the “way of life” linked to it. The use to elaborate vessels and caulk the the new productive structure that of the car - the main product that canoes in the Santa Elena penin- was created. consumes oil - electric appliances, sula and in North America several In World War I, oil was nylon clothes and plastic articles indigenous peoples used it for me- necessary as fuel and also for the were shaping a new type of con- dicinal purposes. production of natural rubber and sumption, which in turn shaped However, oil acquired later on to make synthetic rub- the content of social reproduction technological importance with ber. A technological development that is known as the American way the development of urban modern linked to oil had begun and it of life. society that started to have more strongly grew in the second half of Centered on oil, all this transportation and lighting needs, the 1930s. This is when the second material and ideological richness and by the second half of the 19th great phase of this story starts with was intended to Americanize the century, oil was responding with the discovery of plastics from pet- world. The technologies that efficiency to these necessities. The rochemical origins. were developed pushed the expan- combustion motor needed fuel

40 THE GEOPOLITICS OF OIL

sion of oil through other branches ers increased. This could not have decisive element of the production of production, such as the massive happened without the plastics on and consumption of Americanized agricultural revolution – a true which many such industries de- modernity. technological recycling of the war pend. The history of oil is con- industry – used oil as its main raw Oil products were rap- nected to the genesis of the most material. Oil was used at practi- idly increasing in a society that was complex human civilization that cally every stage of the new agro- each day more “petrolized”. Oil had has ever existed and that has inte- industry, from the fuel fot the ma- become an addiction of capitalist grated the entire globe to its logic. chines to the synthetic components production and way of life. This Currently oil still defines the tech- of new pesticides and fertilizers. addiction has caused wars, global nical and geopolitical metabolism The Soviet Union and warming and health crisis (eg. can- of our social body and still places other countries never achieved the cer caused by the addition of syn- our survival on our planet in ques- same consumption of products de- thetic ingredients in food). tion. rived from oil as the United States, Due to the problems that Now that the chronic although oil was equally funda- oil implied, some technological al- sickness of the global social body mental to their economies. ternatives have been proposed, but is evident because of its addiction The United States hege- these cannot diminish the hege- to oil, we should ask if we want to mony and the developed countries monic power of the oil model. The continue this blind dynamic of our that after the war imitated its oil strength of the automobile indus- society that brought us to this situ- industry, generated in the Third try is growing every year, resulting ation, where private accumulation World countries a kind of associa- in an increased demand for energy of capital and its representatives – tion that little by little started to and the constant development of the hegemonic countries and the claim more benefits from this rich- plastics. In addition, alternative en- big companies – dictate our des- ness. ergy sources are controlled by the tiny as humanity. These oil producing same oil capital that does not have countries in the 1970s, took ad- a real interest for these alternatives * Omar Bonilla y Pavel Veraza vantage of the exhaustion of oil to become effective until the plan- reserves in the United States to et’s oil reserves are exhausted. reduce their oil production and Oil, by the quantity of nationalize their oil industries (this energy that it has provided for pro- process had started in past de- ductive processes, the quantity of cades, but was slower). exchange of labour force, the quan- It was not the time when tity of its products, and the type of oil could be related to progress any- consumption that was generated more. In the oil producing coun- by it, has constituted our contem- tries, dependency on this material porary world. to obtain higher incomes brought The materialist capital- severe crisis during the 1980s due ist civilization that Braudel talked to external debt. about, continued to grow from the In the same way, start- second half of the 19th century to ing in the 1970s, the crisis that the today in the development of the environment is facing because of oil civilization. In this period, the the burning of oil is impossible to global body of the capitalist society hide. However, the oil industry has developed and had its genesis did not pay attention to this issue when oil became its vital energy. and kept growing. In this period Later on in the 20th century it be- the microelectronics industry got came its social body, converting it- stronger and the use of comput- self into synthetic material and the

41 CHAPTER 4

GLOBAL END OF OIL* 2030 so as to meet the oil demands More and more explor- SIMPLE LESSONS ARE of the u s a as access to Middle East atory efforts are being focussed on NOT NECESSARILY EASY crude may get more difficult. It was offshore locations as the onshore TO LEARN. FOR EXAMPLE: recently reported that by early 2007 and other easily accessible loca- OIL IS A NON-RENEWABLE Nigeria became the third largest tions either get less productive or AND LIMITED RESOURCE1 supplier of crude oil to the United are not available. Frontier explora- States, after Canada and Mexico3. tion has pushed the Norwegian 1. Global end of oil To underscore the strategic impor- state oil corporation into new fields tance, the u s a is setting up a military in the Barents Sea, for example. The world has finally command in the Gulf of Guinea The field whose name translates as woken up to the reality of climate possibly to ensure that nothing dis- Snow White in English is planned change. Harsh weather events have turbs the flow of oil from the region. to have no surface installations and shown that not even the most de- This command will come into full will thus have everything sited on veloped countries of this world can operation as a unified command by the continental shelf. The produc- fully withstand these freak weather October 20084. tion facilities are all located on the events. The world is increasingly Petroleum geologists seabed and the oil is extracted by seeing floods, hurricanes, torna- think that this may be wishful think- remote control through underwa- does, drought and wild fires of huge ing as Nigeria’s proven reserves and ter pipelines. An analyst has this to proportions. With these events, geological data do not justify the say of this effort, “the Snow White citizens of the world are recording optimism of heightened production fields shows, the days of a floating increased incidents of disease, pov- volumes in Nigeria5. The lesson oil platform are coming to an end. erty, losses and untold hardships. pressing to be grasped here is that In time, advances in technology And because the climate crisis also there is a physical barrier or limit to may even allow for exploration be- manifests in restriction of access to how much a nation can kowtow to neath the polar ice. However, the resources, incidents of conflicts are the demands of another nation. The ecological risks are tremendous – on the increase too. almost desperate move by nations being able to drill under the ice does It is generally believed to find crude oil is leading to auda- not mean that companies can clean that the world will soon witness a cious activities as well as innovations up an oil spill there.” The thing to peak in oil production and this will in the extractive fields. Recently we note here is that in no distant time, coincide with the world having used heard of Russia claiming owner- communities who claim ownership more than half of all currently prov- ship of the North Pole by planting of crude oil because they host oil in- en reserves2. Some experts estimate a flag in the sea bed there, 4.2 km stallations may find no installations that Nigeria reached her own peak below the surface!6 Claiming own- at all on their land or waters while oil level two years ago. Already Ni- ership by flag planting is an emblem the oil flows from beneath their feet geria is saying that production here of gaining victory through warfare. and translates into unseen billions can be increased from the current We may soon expect to hear that of dollars and only show up through reported 2.5 million barrels a day to since the u s a planted a flag on the oil spills that cannot be hidden. 5.2 million barrels a day by the year moon in 1969, they are the owners of Critical analysis is required on this 1 Floegel, Mark, Half a Tank: The the celestial body. with regard to the Ogoni situation, Impending Arrival of Peak Oil (Washing- for example, where Shell has been a ton: Multinational Monitor, January-Feb- persona non grata since 1993. ruary 2007) p. 15 3 Akande, Laolu, Nigeria is third 2 Multinational Monitor, The largest oil exporter to U.S., (Lagos: The End of Oil (editorial), (Washington: Janu- Guardian, 13 June 2007). http://www. 2. Profiting from crisis: ary/February 2007 edition). P. 6. This issue guardiannewsngr.com/news/article02 of the Multinational Monitor illustrates, 4 US Africa Command Reaches the economics of war among others, that the “Corporate control Initial Operating Capability, Press Re- of energy policy and energy resources, es- lease 08-001, October 1, 2007. See http:// The path of crude oil de- pecially in the United States, the country www.africom.mil/ that consumes more energy than any other, 5 Wysham,Daphne, ibid velopment has been strewn with is the single greatest obstacle to slow and 6 BBC: Russia plants flag un- skeletons and soaked in human hopefully reverse the world’s headlong der N Pole, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ blood across the world. The ongo- rush to disaster.” europe/6927395.stm 42 THE GEOPOLITICS OF OIL

ing case in Nigeria is a glaring ex- Thus, when the tsunami wreaked litical class but also encourages the ample. The case of Angola is still havoc on the coastal settlements of personalization of state resources by fresh in memory. In 1999, as the first Indonesia, it offered a clean slate those who wield political power, a barrels of crude oil were shipped for speculators to clear the ‘debris’ bureaucratic culture of secrecy and from Sudan, so did the war between and erect luxury resorts where the impunity, which nurtures an already government forces and those of the homes and businesses of people had entrenched abuse of power by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army stood before the disaster. Could political and administrative class.”9 escalate. When we turn our eyes to this become the fate of the Niger Its manifestation is ubiq- the Middle East we see the raw situ- Delta? We have seen entire commu- uitous and its pinch is directly felt ation of war waged for profit and re- nities razed to the ground. An ex- by the peoples of the Niger Delta source appropriation and control. ample is Odi which was levelled in who have become nothing short of The issue of the profit- November 1999 and left over 2800 pawns on the chessboards of po- ability of disasters has been expertly citizens dead. Recently the water- litical manipulators. The manifesta- exposed by Naomi Klein in her new front of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, tions are seen on the boardrooms book. She states that “With resource largely inhabited from the politically of corporations, shareholder divi- scarcity and climate change provid- oppressed class was demolished dends, and in the proverbial excess ing a steadily increasing flow of new possibly to make it possible for the crude funds in the case of Nigeria. disasters, responding to emergen- prime land to be grabbed by those The ‘excess crude’ euphemism is a cies is simply too hot an emerging who wield power in the state. Hap- concept by which the political exec- market to be left to the nonprofits – pily this atrocious move has now utives in Nigeria purposely base rev- why should u n i c e f rebuild schools been halted. enue projections on estimates far be- when it can be done by Bechtel, one It should be instructive low the market value of crude oil in of the largest engineering firms in that at a time when oil fields have order not to be caught off guard by a the u s a .?” She also asks the ques- become hotbeds of conflicts and slump in price, and probably also to tion, “Why deploy u n peacekeep- insurgency, that is precisely when skim off the ‘excess’ funds that must ers to Darfur when private security oil companies are making record come where there are positive dif- companies like Blackwater are look- breaking profits. This boom is also ferentials, as always is the case. With ing for new clients?”7 In a 2005 arti- enjoyed by those involved in weap- current price of oil pushing beyond cle with the title Allure of the Blank ons trade, deconstruction/recon- $90 per barrel, and with the current State8, she articulated the advance- struction, private soldiers and the Nigerian national budget based on a ment of preventive war as norma- like. In the month of October 2006 $40 per barrel benchmark, political tive behaviour by the government of when the highest Iraqi civilian casu- actors at various levels are already President George W. Bush. In that alties of 3,709 were recorded, a mar- angling to share the ‘windfall’ which article, Klein recorded that the u s ket analyst stated that Halliburton’s often have been seen as nothing but Secretary of State was said to have quarterly profit was “better than ex- the ‘loot’, utilized without account- ‘horrified many by describing the pected.” By the last quarter of 2006 ability. We note that for 2005 and tsunami as a “wonderful opportu- this company had enjoyed an inflow 2006 budgets the benchmark was nity” that “has paid great dividends of up to $20 billion from the Iraqi $30/barrel of crude oil and for 2008 for us.”’ The idea is that when a war alone. the proposal stands at $53/barrel10. disaster, whether natural or man- The massive transfer of made occurs, it gives the wielders of public funds into private and cor- * Nnimmo Bassey, e r a power the opportunity to dispossess porations hands is best described as 9 Jinadu, L. Adele, et al, Intro- the poor of their heritage and appro- disaster capitalism. Writing on the duction: Scope, Method and Context, priate them for their own purposes. Niger Delta situation, a researcher Democracy, Oil and Politics in the Niger declared that, “the low level of ac- Delta: Linking Citizens’ Perceptions and 7 Klein, Naomi, The Shock Doc- Policy Reform (Port Harcourt: Centre for trine, (London: Penguin Books, 2007) p. 15 countability is also attributed to Advanced Social Science, 2007) p.16 8 Klein, Naomi, Allure of the Blank weak electoral administration and 10 Adisa, Taiwo, 2008 budget’ll State (London: The Guardian, Monday process, and a pervasive undemo- be people-focused – Sen. Omisore, (Iba- April 18, 2005). A longer version of the ar- dan: Nigerian Tribune, Saturday 6th ticle was published in The Nation, www. cratic political culture which not Oct. 2007). http://www.tribune.com. thenation.com only serves the interest of the po- ng/06102007/politics_2.html

43 CHAPTER 4

TWENTIETH pute for the Bioko islands in Equa- Vietnam, Mobil Corporation car- CENTURY WARS* torial Guinea ried out off-shore prospecting in what they used to call “South Viet- Wars during the LATIN-AMERICA nam”. During the 1990s Mobil twentieth century and the won an operation license for the beginning of the twenty- At least two of the last same fields where three decades first have been fed by oil century´s wars were directly relat- before Blue Dragon operated (280 and in the majority of the ed to oil: the Chaco war in which km from the Mekong Delta). cases oil has been the main Paraguay lost a portion of it´s ter- The colonialist occupa- cause for the conflict. ritory with important oil deposits, tion by Indonesia of East Timor, and the Ecuador-Peru war. supported by the United States AFRICA During the 1980’s the civil and Australia, was in part due to war that overtook Guatemala was the presence of important hydro- In Angola, one of Africa’s focused on the Ixcan area where carbon reserves in the Timor Sea, main oil producers, control of pe- currently oil reserves are being ex- as well as a dispute over the Sprat- troleum resources have been always plored after the indigenous popu- ley Islands, a series of small islands in the hands of Angola’s National lation was forcefully displaced. with oil reserves over which China, Liberation Popular Movement More recently, there ex- Vietnam, the Philippines, Indo- (m p l a ) now in power. The per- ists the Colombia Plan, which has nesia, Malaysia, and Brunei claim petuation of the civil war in this among other objectives the control rights. country was clearly related to the of Colombia’s oil production. The need to control oil reserves, and Colombia Plan has been a focus EASTERN EUROPE for this reason the United States in the Putumayo region, where al- financed the u n i t a guerrillas, who though oil production is not very The war in Chechnya controled the diamond mines and important, new research indicates was of great importance for the were enemies of the m p l a . The that the reserves could be bigger United States and Europe to break main military objectives of the than was known. Russian hegemony over crude oil u n i t a were the petroleum produc- The problem in the re- transport. Although Chechnya´s ing areas (which represented 90% gion is the continuous sabotage reserves are not that important, the of the government’s budget). Cur- of oil infrastructure at the hands area is crucial for the pipeline that rently, all the important oil compa- of irregular armies in the country, funnels crude oil from the Caspian nies in the world have investments which for the oil industry means Sea. The pipeline allows Russia to in Angola. important financial losses. With maintain control over the oil and The Algerian war of lib- the Andean Initiative, the United its price, which uses this as a mech- eration, one of the bloodiest of the States of America seeks to control anism of political control. continent´s wars, which lasted al- the five Andean-Amazon countries In the former Yugoslavia most a decade and had, as its un- oil production, all of which are gas the conflicts had to do with the derlining cause, the nation´s rich and oil producers. control of crude oil transport from oil deposits, which up to their na- The Chiapas conflict in the Middle East and Caspian de- tionalization in 1968 were exploit- Mexico has a direct link to the vo- posits to the Mediterranean Sea ed by French oil companies. racity of the United States to drill and the Black Sea. Sudan’s civil war is also oil wells in the region which seems Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, stained with oil. In September to contain great wealth. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to- 1999, Sudan became Africa’s new gether have a proven reserve of 115 major oil exporter. ASIA billion barrels of crude oil and 11 Other conflicts in Africa quintillion cubic meters of gas. Up related to oil include the recent While the United States until now Russia has retained con- war in Africa’s Horn and the dis- lead a war against the people of trol of the region’s crude oil trans-

44 THE GEOPOLITICS OF OIL

fer, which the United States wants feasible to control Caspian Sea From these 40 giant oil deposits, to snatch. production because of the institu- 26 are in the Persian Gulf, which is The importance of the tional weakness of the countries in the main reason this region is so im- area lies in the fact that the United the region. portant for the United States, the States considers Caspian crude world’s bigger oil consumer. could offset the control held by MIDDLE EAST The 1991 Gulf War in the o p e c countries in establish- Iraq enabled Western powers led ing crude oil prices. This role was There are over 40,000 by the United States to destabi- previously played by North Sea oil known oil deposits in the world, lize o p e c and exert control over oil reserves, but they are inferior to but only 40 representing over 5 bil- prices, creating a new correlation of the Caspian region and the United lion barrels of oil that contain more forces in favor of the United States States considers that it is far more than half of the world’s oil reserves. in the area where the most important oil reserves in the world are found. This oil war directly caused What do oil companies really do? the death of 1.5 million people with an additional 5,000 Iraqi children 1.To finance massacres, conflicts and inter-ethnic dead from malnutrition each month wars, low intensity warfare originated in the oil ex- the u s and its allies imposed their ploitation; embargo on Iraq. 2.To expel populations from oil areas (from families The Afghan conflict is to massive expulsions), with colonizing, “relocation”, linked to the control of transport of “transmigration” programs sponsored by the multi- the region’s abundant oil resources, lateral banking system; both in the Caspian as well as the 3.To alter the life of women: through heavier work- Persian Gulf. loads, sexual abuses, violence; The pipeline through 4.To alter the life of children: using their workforce Afghanistan that brings Central for decontamination; Asian oil to Western markets, rep- 5.To destroy cultural diversity; resents a less expensive alternative 6.To diminish the safety of those who live near oil in comparison to other routes, but facilities; the main problem has been the 7.To destroy the base for self sufficiency of com- Taliban’s presence, which although munities and people; raised to power by the c i a when it 8.To confiscate land from the peasants and indig- lead a war against a pro-Soviet gov- enous people; ernment, soon became the enemy. 9.To cause impoverishment and inflation; It is believed that Afghan- 10.To create the conditions which proliferate a num- istan holds important reserves. In ber of sexually transmitted and tropical diseases. its time the u s s r calculated that the 11.To generate environmental racism; country could have natural gas re- 12.To cause the extinction of natural species; serves in the order of the 0.14 quin- 13.To alter and destroy the life of rivers and forest; tillion cubic meters. 14.To accumulate waste, some of which is toxic; The Iraq war - sustained 15.To trigger an increase of illnesses such as cancer by the weapons of mass destruction and leukemia; argument - which were never found, 16.To confiscate other resources in their concessions had as an objective control over the such as water, wood, sand and other resources; production of the enormous oil re- 17.To induce and provoke an increase in prostitution serves of the country. The costs of and crime; the war as well as the dead have yet 18.To cause internal conflicts among the communi- to be counted. ties. * Elizabeth Bravo, Oilwatch

45 CHAPTER 5

TECHNO-FIXES* what to do next. After some large. Much technical advice discussion, they decided to was excitedly exchanged, There’s a wonderful find a second, larger truck many arms were waved, story about a group of men and hook it up to the first and many serious theories trying to retrieve a car that truck to try to pull it out. were advanced. At the end had rolled off a ramp into At first it looked like this of the debate a fourth, even a harbor and was almost might succeed. But then the huger truck was hooked up completely submerged. The second truck’s wheels also to the last victim. You can first thing the men did was slipped on the ramp, and it guess the rest. At the end to find a truck and some too was dragged down into of the day five motor vehi- ropes to try to pull the car the harbor. After a lively cles were lying in the har- out of the harbor. At first, discussion among the ever- bor, only their roofs show- everything went well. But growing crowd of men on ing, with the original car no just as the car’s windows the quayside, each of whom closer to being rescued. slowly began to break the now had a new theory to surface, the truck’s wheels contribute about how to fix Techno-fixes are a little started spinning and ulti- the problem, a third truck like that. A small group in society mately it slipped backwards was found to try to pull the insists on repeatedly using a narrow down the ramp and joined second truck out. Unfortu- set of technical tools to try to solve a complicated problem no matter the car in the water. The nately, it met the same fate and wound up in the water. how often it fails. Whether because growing number of inter- of its political or financial interests, ested male spectators then By now, the crowd of men gathered around was quite or just because of its limited back- huddled to try to figure out 10000 8000 6000 4000 Kilograms of oil equivalent per person 2000 capita (2002) 0 Peru Italy Chile Libya Malta Brazil China Israel Spain Japan Bolivia Poland France Mexico Greece Cyprus Austria Ireland Finland Canada Norway Ukraine Sweden Panama Ecuador Belgium Bulgaria Portugal Slovakia Uruguay Slovenia Hungary Romania Australia Denmark Germany Colombia Paraguay Honduras Argentina Nicaragua Venezuela Total energy consumption per Total energy Czech Rep Costa Rica Guatemala Hong Kong Korea, Rep El Salvador Switzerland Netherlands South Africa Saudi Arabia Saudi New Zealand United States United Kingdom Russian Federation

46 TECHNO-FIXES

ground, the group resists learning sil fuels. So we get a lot of talk about stance, to quantify a project’s contri- from history and analyzing the full biofuels, geological carbon storage, bution to lowering greenhouse gas complexity of the problem and the ocean fertilization, genetically- levels, you have to posit a single sce- resources available. It is the one modified tree plantations, spraying nario describing “what would have holding the hammer, so to it, every- the atmosphere with reflective par- happened” without it. By confus- thing looks like a nail waiting to be ticles, cost-benefit analysis, carbon ing prediction with decision-mak- pounded. The result is a cascade trading. ing, this simply begs the question of further problems – and further Each of these techno-fixes of what can and cannot be done fixes – which exacerbate and some- creates a chain of new problems about climate change. It replaces times even overwhelm the original without solving the original one. the discussion of structural change problem. If you think the example For example, doing a cost-benefit in industrialized societies with end- of the drowned trucks is funny, analysis of whether we should do less scholastic disputation among consider the example of the World something about global warming consultants over meaningless num- Bank, which has failed for 60 years brings about new dangers because, bers. Neoliberalism, narrow profes- to advance the objective it was sup- among other things, it treats cli- sionalism, elitism and class politics posedly set up to pursue – relieving mate change as linear rather than are combining to produce techno- poverty – yet keeps applying essen- nonlinear and reduces the igno- fixes that can only create new prob- tially the same approach. rance and uncertainties that char- lems. Climate politics today acterize climate science to calcu- is full of techno-fixes, because few lable “probabilities”. Similarly, the * Larry Lohmann (Durban people in government or industry trade in carbon credits created by Group) want to address the problem at its carbon-“saving” projects requires an political and social roots, especially accounting process that itself has

the overuse and unequal use of fos- counterproductive effects. For in- 10000 8000 6000 4000 Kilograms of oil equivalent per person 2000 capita (2002) 0 Peru Italy Chile Libya Malta Brazil China Israel Spain Japan Bolivia Poland France Mexico Greece Cyprus Austria Ireland Finland Canada Norway Ukraine Sweden Panama Ecuador Belgium Bulgaria Portugal Slovakia Uruguay Slovenia Hungary Romania Australia Denmark Germany Colombia Paraguay Honduras Argentina Nicaragua Venezuela Total energy consumption per Total energy Czech Rep Costa Rica Guatemala Hong Kong Korea, Rep El Salvador Switzerland Netherlands South Africa Saudi Arabia Saudi New Zealand United States United Kingdom Russian Federation

47 CHAPTER 5

CUTTING EDGE To interpret the vast drill bit remotely in three dimen- TECHNOLOGY* amount of data of seismic tests, sions has changed this. Direction- powerful computer processing ca- al drilling has existed almost 100 pacity is needed and because this years, but it is only recently that Whenever conces- processing capacity is becoming drillers have obtained the technol- sions are granted to start ever cheaper and faster, seismic ogy to almost fully control and au- oil exploration or exploi- exploration can now be done more tomate the process. tation in environmentally accurately: the grid of lines is made Directional, extended-reach drill- fragile areas, the govern- denser and larger, and 4d explora- ing is expensive, but has many ad- ments who give the licence, tion (the evolution of 3d explora- vantages: or the companies which will tion data over time) is becoming • Up to 40 oil wells can be drilled operate in this area prom- more common. This development from one platform, reducing ise to use high tech to pre- has meant a negative impact on the environmental impact vent damage to the en- environment. • Directional drilling has been vironment. The following Wireless seismic explora- used to tap wells up to 10km article will focus on some tion may be more environmentally away from the platform methods which, according friendly. The method is the same • Horizontal drilling can give to oil companies, allow for as traditional “wired” seismic test- higher yield cleaner production. ing, but the battery operated re- Not only are less plat- ceivers transmit their results using forms needed, platforms have also 1. Exploration wifi technology to a base station. reduced in size over the years. The fact that no data transmission In Alaska for example, a or power cables are needed means drilling platform that would have Seismic exploration is a that exploration can be done with- been 27 hectares in 1977 can be geophysical exploration method out clearing lines through the for- less than 3.6 hectares today for the that uses the principles of seismol- est. same number of wells. ogy to estimate the properties of This method is fast While these techniques the earth’s subsurface from reflect- becoming more common, not reduce the amount of direct im- ed seismic waves. The method re- because of the reduced environ- pact such as deforestation of oil quires a controlled seismic source mental impact but rather because exploitation areas, indirect impact (eg. underground dynamite exploit is faster and cheaper than the is a far greater threat to these ar- sion) and a number of receivers traditional line clearing and also eas. Traditional onshore oil ex- which record the time it takes for a because it opens the possibility to ploitation requires access roads to reflected wave to arrive at a receiv- make the grid even denser. drilling platforms and these roads er. Using this data, it is possible to The downside of this facilitate the destruction of the estimate the depth and the features evolution is that because explora- environment. Shortly after the oil that generated the reflection. tion can be done with less impact, companies exploit an area, logging To position this seis- governments are more likely to or agro business move in to exploit mic source and the receivers, and grant exploration licences for frag- the forest or the land. to connect the cables, it is neces- This can be avoided by sary to clear lines of a few meters ile areas. using “offshore” techniques for on- wide through forests. Originally, shore drilling, eg. no access roads, two-dimensional exploration was 2. Drilling transportation via helicopters, no done, which meant that just one permanent camps in protected ar- line needed to be cleared to obtain In the old days every oil eas, no maintenance roads along results. Since 1990, 3d exploration well used to have its own drilling pipelines but trains etc. It is es- has become more common, which platform, access road, pipeline, timated that this method is 40% means a grid of lines needs to be power generating plant, waste more expensive than traditional cleared, typically every few hun- dump etc. Directional drilling, dred meters. exploitation. whereby the drillers can steer the

48 TECHNO-FIXES

3. Transportation: Clean up costs are paid for by the or shut down pumps when irregu- p ipelines and maritime International Oil Pollution Com- larities are recorded. pensation funds: funds financed by The Camisea pipeline in transportation the consumers. Peru runs through pristine rainfor- Incidents with pipelines est. There was strong opposition The bulk of all oil trans- generally receive less press atten- to this project from environmental ported worldwide (62%) is using tion then oil tankers, probably groups and the project developers maritime transportation. Oil tank- because the incidents are smaller, promised to “use extreme care in ers have a bad reputation, but the but also much more frequent. In the planning and execution of the amount of accidents and the size of the 1999 “Oil spill intelligence re- project”. The pipeline became op- the oil spills are steadily reducing, port” 257 incidents are recorded: erational in 2004 and during its first despite the increase in the quantity only 11 of them were with tankers, 18 months of operation the pipeline of oil carried by sea. accounting for about one fifth of ruptured 5 times. Some examples of technology used the oil spilled, 197 incidents were According to an incident to reduce the risks of oil transport- related to pipelines and fixed facili- report by the Inter American De- ed overseas: ties, accounting for more then three velopment Bank (the project finan- • Inert gas systems: a layer of quarters of the oil spilled. cier) the causes of the spills were inert gas is pumped into the oil Technological solutions can be geological instability and some bad tanks to reduce the chance of ex- used to maintain and monitor pipe- welds. While the pipeline was built plosion. lines so as to reduce the chances of to withstand the required pressure, • Equipment duplication: all spills: geological instability, seismic events steering and navigation • Intelligent “pigs”: and scouring of water was hardly equipment must be duplicated. “Pigs” are the name given taken into account during the pro- • Double hull tankers: the to devices that are placed into the duction process. Besides that, the double hull requirement was adapt- pipeline and travel throughout the pipeline’s s c a d a system only de- ed in 1992, to phase out single hull length of the pipeline driven by tected 4 out of the 5 ruptures. tankers in 30 years time. Following product flow. Intelligent pigs are In 2006 in Alaska, a b p the accident of the Erika in 1999, often used to check the pipeline pipeline ruptured and released al- the phaseout program was acceler- for defects: to check the welding, most 1 million litres of crude onto ated to 2005 / 2010 depending on to check the material thickness or the Tundra. Despite s c a d a sys- the type of tanker. corrosion, leak or crack detection, tems, it took days before oil work- • Improved navigation tech- photographic inspection. ers could find the leak. niques, satellite tracking systems, • s c a d a : b p is now facing criminal stricter regulations and training for Most pipelines nowa- charges for neglecting maintenance crews... days are equipped with Supervi- work on the pipeline. Apparently, While technology reduces sory Control and Data Acquisition b p has been doing inadequate main- the risks of accidents with oil tank- (s c a d a ) systems. A typical s c a d a tenance for 15 years. It had been ers, accidents still happen and are system includes one host system, over 2 years since an intelligent pig often caused by human error (1989, the software and hardware in- was used to check the state of the a drunk captain on the Exxon Val- stalled in the central control facility, pipeline. dez), negligence (2007, river tanker and many field systems installed at One b p employee who Volganeft used on the Black Sea) significant points in the pipeline. repeatedly warned management a or even intent (2002, bombing of All data is collected in the few years ago that cost reductions the double hulled tanker Limburg central control facility where opera- in maintenance would lead to ac- in Yemen). tors can easily monitor the state cidents was fired by b p . The oil The oil industry never of the pipeline. They are often as- company also hired, to no avail, a takes responsibility for accidents sisted by “Computational pipeline security company to try to discredit with oil tankers and also the liabil- monitoring”, software which will the ex–employee. ity of the ship-owner is very limited. interpret all the parameters of the s c a d a system, and sound an alarm * Piet Boedt, Oilwatch

49 CHAPTER 5

WASTE and come up during the drilling began to leach out of the pits and MANAGEMENT* process. This amount of waste var- spread across the tundra on top of ies between 1000 and 5000 m3 per the permafrost. Where there’s oil, well. Produced water is the there’s pollution. Technol- In offshore operations, collection of formation water and ogy may reduce the risks this waste used to be dumped in injection water which is pumped of adverse effects on the the sea, in onshore operations, up together with the oil. This wa- environment of oil activi- the waste was often disposed of in ter is typically contaminated with ties. But it is also clear that pools next to the drilling platform. oil, inorganic salts and other some- these risks are only reduced Environmental concerns times radioactive chemicals . The to the extend that oilcom- (and regulations) led to better dis- ratio produced water to oil var- panies deem it necessary: posal techniques. ies, but as the oil well is depleted, they make a cost – benefit The options are: the water becomes the prevailing analysis whereby the envi- • Using less toxic alternatives as phase. Produced water is by far the ronment is usually not val- drilling fluids biggest waste during oil produc- ued very high. The corpo- • Transportation of the waste to a tion, it is estimated that 250 million rate responsibility does not treatment plant barrels of water is produced world- go beyond the bottom line. • Re-injection into a disposal well wide each day. Produced water used While some environmen- The problem with re- to be (and sometimes still is) dis- tal improvements have been made, injection is that geological condi- charged into the sea or rivers. A they are often mitigated through tions must be suitable to find a better, and most often used option, increased oil production, and are good disposal well where there is to reinject this waste into dispos- often used as arguments to start is no chance of break-out of the al wells or into oil wells to improve operations in fragile areas. waste to the surface or to potable the production. However, not Waste produced during water sources. all areas have suitable geological drilling and production can be clas- In Alaska, 1987, b p was conditions to use this option, eg. sified in drilling waste, produced one of the first companies to use areas where severe seismic activity water and atmospheric emissions. disposal wells to dump any kind threatens the integrity of a waste Drilling waste is the mud of waste, within a few years b p had deposit. There have been numer- and water polluted by chemical a serious environmental problem ous cases where reinjected water drilling fluids which are added on its hands, as poisonous wastes has contaminated groundwater. Other technological options exist to reduce the amount of water pumped up with the oil: • Mechanical devices which separate the water from the oil at the bottom of the well, and dispose of the water before it reaches the surface. These “downhole oil water separators”, which use grav- ity or centrifugal force to separate water from oil, typically succeed in reducing the water production by 75%. The success of the technology depends on geological conditions and the type of crude: heavy crude is more likely to give better results.

50 TECHNO-FIXES

This technology has so far only been used in trials, financed by research institutes, because the oil industry considers the technology not economically viable, because of the high capital cost. • Water shut off chemicals, gels. Gel solutions which are injected in the well, selectively enter the cracks and pathways that the water follows and displace the water. When the gels set up in the cracks, they block most of the water movement to the well while allowing oil to flow to the well. In a typical example, the No high tech solutions meet the deadlines set by the court. median water-to-oil ratio was 82 are needed to solve this source of The next deadline is set for 2008, before the treatment, 7 shortly af- pollution: the gas can either be cap- but oil companies claim that due to ter the treatment, and 20 a year or tured and reinjected into the well, inadequate funding, the most real- two after treatment. or it can be captured, transported, istic date for complying the court This technology is treated and commercialized or ruling is 2011. considered economically viable, methods of improved flaring can Meanwhile, oil compa- although the injection of toxic be used. Sometimes it is used for nies are trying to obtain funding chemicals underground can be generating power at the well. through questionable Clean De- questioned. Oil companies have been velopment Mechanism projects for condemned several times for flar- reducing the emissions of gas flar- The atmospheric emis- ing gas. In November 2005, a ing: a fine example of c d m projects sions consist of the flaring of asso- court order in Nigeria ruled that where the polluter makes money. ciated gas and the combustion of Shell should stop flaring. The fuel to generate power. Associated company has repeatedly failed to *Piet Boedt, Oilwatch gas is the gas which was diluted in the underground oil, and which comes free as the pressure drops when oil comes to the surface. The yearly amount of gas flared is enough to provide the whole world 20 days of gas consumption. Flaring of this gas causes black smoke, acid rain and noise pollution. The flares contain a cocktail of toxins that affect the health and livelihood of local communities, causing an increased risk of premature deaths, child respira- tory illnesses, asthma and cancer. Besides that, the flaring also accounts for 0.5% of all green house gas emissions.

51 CHAPTER 5

THE GEOPOLITICS fact that in the current oil civiliza- tutes one of the main components OF AGROFUELS* tion the main disasters, climatic ca- of globalization. The effects of ne- tastrophes, wars, famines, forced oliberal policies in the countryside, Appropriately la- displacement and enslavement of the expansion of agro biotechnol- belled by the social move- people are inextricably linked to ogy, the proliferation of free trade ments as a g r o f u e l s , the the military control over territory agreements, including the struggle so called “biofuels” and and fossil energy. against an Agriculture Agreement the generation of ener- The energy / industrial at the w t o , were the catalyzing gy through biomass as a matrix based on fossil fuels, which force for the coalescence of an in- whole, as promoted by sustains the current urban-indus- ternational peasant movement (La governments, corporations, trial civilization and the develop- Via Campesina). The privatiza- development agencies, the ment status, is in crisis. These tion of natural resources and eco- United Nations, financial in- energy sources are becoming ex- systems in indigenous territories ternational institutions and hausted, so capitalism is desper- strengthened the resistance of the other agents interested in ately searching for new methods Indigenous peoples. industrial production and of energy generation, including The political proposal of international trade – do n o t agrofuels. From our perspective these movements is the ‘Defence change, but p e r p e t u a t e the as agro - exporting countries of the of Food Sovereignty’, expressed in model of production and South, forced into this position by the right of the Peoples’ to control consumption of the modern, the logic of external debt and our and decide on their food produc- urban and industrial social, colonial history, agrofuels embody tion, distribution and consump- political and economic or- the further entrenchment of the tion policies, and whether or not der. agribusiness model and industrial to trade their agricultural surplus agriculture, understood as the sum once the needs of the population The ecological and ener- of monocultures, genetic engineer- had been secured. This should be gy crises that impact on the entire ing, agro-toxics,environmental de- done in accordance with their cul- planet, particularly the urgency to struction and impoverishment of tural and environmental practises. stop global warming, urges the our societies especially those in our This is a radical proposal that de- world to take a giant step towards rural areas. mands the transformation of the transition to a post- petroleum so- economies of agro exporting in ciety and economy, requiring deep 1. Precedents and axes of the South and the consumption patterns of the North. analysis and structural social, po- resistance: Food Sovereignty litical and economic changes. Since agriculture is in- Admitting that it is nec- separable from the protection of The industrial agricul- essary to embrace alternative re- natural resources such as water ture model that begun with the newable energies, it is indispens- and land, decisions over the use Green Revolution is petro-depen- able to analyze the global strategy and management of such resourc- dent in energy and inputs. In ad- that drives the feverish promotion es cannot be made by individual dition, at the historical root of the of agro energy and its structural producers based on the private current industrial monocultures imperatives. ownership of land. Thus, the polit- are plantations, a colonial inven- Hydrocarbons are the ical principle of Food Sovereignty tion, which still today, reproduces main driving force of the global- espouses that the self determina- and multiplies its rationality and ized economy, where the extraction of peoples to guaranteed by productive logic. The end of the tion and control of fossil fuels has the respect of their right to collec- fossil fuel era thus also sounds the an intrinsic relationship with the tive decision making in respect of death knoll for industrial agricul- networks of power that control the food production and agricultural, ture and its antecedents. world through control over ener- pastoral, fishery or gathering ac- The control over the gy. In addition, it is an undeniable global agro-food system consti- 52 TECHNO-FIXES

tivities, emphasizing this to be a bles, the introduction of “carbon fundamental principle. plantations” prescribed by the Taking in account the Clean Development Mechanisms richness of the shared political of the Kyoto Protocol, and other debate developed by social move- such schemes promoted by market ments, we firmly locate the agro- environmentalism, which we vehe- fuels subject – which has already mently oppose. been defined as a the further en- These false solutions trenchment of agribusiness –with- framed in the ideology of “develop- in the context advocated by Food ment”, mushroomed after the Sec- Sovereignty. ond World War as a way to extend The industrialization of colonialism. Policies institutions agriculture by its very nature, re- and structures were created with sults in displacing the peasantry reference to this ideology, which from the countryside as it embod- in the name of development, pro- ies an agricultural system without longed and diversified the nature farmers. This model has far-reach- of ransacking of the South. At the ing implications for the whole of societal malaise that typifies the end of the 20th century, develop- society. It implies dispossession cities across the South. ment got dressed up in ‘Green’ of communities of their land and It is a global, hegemonic and the term “sustainable develop- the plunder of their territories, and dialectic process that breeds ment” was created to “sustain” the concentration and privatization of the current indisputable ecologi- dominance of the colonial model. land and water sources, erosion of cal and energy crisis. This crisis The points set out above biodiversity, destruction of natural cannot be ‘solved’ through techno- represent an attempt to encapsu- ecosystems, and the violence and logical answers such as transgenic late the richness of the debate at militarization required to force seeds being offered as a solution to our meeting and express the com- control over natural resources. “hunger” while the real intention is plexity of the reflections and con- This process of mar- the control of agricultural produc- tributions. We consider these as ginalization of communities that tion, the imposition of intellectual being non-negotiable. If you share begins in the countryside is the property rights, and the commodi- our vision, we invite you to contin- cause of accelerated urbanization fication of life and Nature. ue this reading. that resulted in the crisis of energy Agrofuels, promoted to supply, housing, health and other solve an energy crisis, is a false 2. The geopolitics of basic services, jobs and access to solution to climate change, which food in the cities. Urban poverty demands the perpetuation of the agrofuels breeds violence, conflicts and the structural problems generated by urban conglomerates, supplied by The submission of the goods transported from different local agricultural systems to the places around the planet, and that industrial model and to an exog- The competition oblige people and goods to move enous energy demand is a political for food between increasingly over longer distances matter, implying power relations 600 million cars feeding off a never ending demand over ecosystems and peoples. This and 2000 million of energy. power manifests itself on two well- defined levels: of the poorest Nor can solutions come

people of our from market instruments such as carbon trading, the sale of envi- • First: The current global de- planet, may lead ronmental services, certification pendency on fossil fuels is satisfied to popular revolt. schemes, “sustainable” round ta- through the geopolitics of war.

53 CHAPTER 5

Number of cars on our planet

700

600

500

400

300

Millions of cars 200

100

0 1855 1900 1913 1921 1930 1970 1985 1996 2007 To guarantee the control this dependence, they risk swift nation that countries such as Iran over hydrocarbon resources, and and brutal economic, political or and North Korea have met for us- now over agrofuels, the industri- military reprisals. The geopolitics ing the same technologies. Brazil alized countries and their trans- of oil is designed not only to guar- is today, part of the circle of friends national corporations, have devel- antee access to hydrocarbons, but of the US and for the time being, oped both economic and financial also to control its distribution. This beyond political reproach. mechanisms and political and explains many of the armed con- Nevertheless, we state military ones. In this respect, inter- flicts in the Middle East, Afghani- categorically and without any am- national commercial agreements stan the Caucasus and Central biguity that nuclear power is unac- have been designed to allow free Asia where the control over hydro- ceptable –this position is non-ne- access to the resources through carbon transport routes are heavily gotiable-no matter the pretext that market laws. contested by American, European, nuclear energy may be promoted. These trade agreements, Russian and Asian companies and Humanity and the environment bilateral or multilateral, come countries that back them. have already experienced enough hand in hand with the expansion Just as a new geopolitics destruction and suffering from its of infrastructure projects (ducts was forged to secure access to fos- consequences. to transport gas, oil, minerals and sil fuels, in the same way a new cor- • Second: The geopolitics of agro- currently agrofuels as ethanol or relation of forces is created around fuels compels a global territorial biodiesel; roads, hydroways, ports, the agrofuels industry worldwide. rearrangement. processing infrastructure, storage The clearest example is the Lula- In the first instance, this and expenditure of fuels, electri- Bush alliance (Brazil and The reorganization entails the coloni- cal installations and so forth. The United States) for the creation of a zation of territories used for food international financial institutions, global market of agroenergy com- crops, to produce energy commod- through diverse strategies and modities, which is already translat- ities, and with it will come the ob- mechanisms, trick and condemn ed in a rearrangement of the global vious price competition with food countries into a spiral of depen- balance of power. This is why the (the Mexican maize case in early dence and death, for example recent announcement by Brazil to 2007 is a clear example), setting through debt. restart its nuclear program and the off a chain reaction on the whole When a government or cycle of uranium enrichment, did economy. the people attempt to break from not elicit the outcry and condem-

54 TECHNO-FIXES

Thus, to “replace” fossil fuels with To summarise, the repro- The amount of agrofuels, will impact more seri- duction of capitalism in a society in- cereal needed to ously on rural populations, gener- transition to a post- petroleum era fill a 25 gallons (or ating strong rural to urban migra- depends on the incorporation and tory flows. control, even by military means, of 100 litre) car tank This pressure on land will gigantic areas of territory. So, the with ethanol just be deepened as a result of the man- axes of resistance are to ensure the once, tra that agrofuels will be grown on integrity of sovereignty over land, is enough to feed so called “marginal lands” or “arid guaranteeing access to local food one person during land”. These lands are amongst and energy: strengthening energy one complete year. those that has been left out of the and food sovereignty and redefin- agro- industrial scheme and feed ing political sovereignty. most of the poor and peasant populations and indigenous peoples * Position Paper of the Global of Africa, Asia and Latin America, South on Food Sovereignty, Energy On a wider level and re- Sovereignty and the transition towards a who live in non- commercial cul- post-oil society lated to the use of so-called ‘second tures. It’s on these “marginal lands” generation’ agrofuels from non- that millions of hectares of Jatro- food species (such as eucalyptus, pha are intended to be introduced, switch grass, Miscanthus, among plantation style in arid regions of others), this rearrangement will India, the Sahel and West Africa. result in the occupation of land on an exponentially increasing scale.

Global energy sources (2005) Renewable (solar, wind, Nuclear geothermical) 7% Hydro- Hydroelectrical 1% 7%electrica l

Oil 85%

55 CHAPTER 6

COMMON BUT According to the i p c c According to the World DIFFERENTIATED there are four areas in the World Bank, adaptation would be covered RESPONSIBILITIES* that will be most affected by cli- in the following way: mate change: Asia, Saharan Africa, • o d a and financing in “favorable” VULNERABILITY AND insular territories and the Artic; conditions ADAPTATION although the effects will be devas- 4000–8000 tating in practically every country • Direct foreign investment 1. Vulnerability and in the South. This could be clearly 2000–3000 adaptation read in all the IPCC reports. • National investment 3000–30000 • Total cost for adaptation The u n Framework Con- 2. Adaptation costs and vention on Climate Change and its 9000–41000 responsibilities scientific organs have recognized that the climate change impacts will In the same way as with The World Bank has affect in a disproportional matter mitigation costs to calculate vulner- made estimations that between 10 the countries of the South. This is ability and adaptation, a scenario to 40 billion dollars will be needed because the planet’s climatic chaos analysis has to be done which evalu- to cover climate change adaptation will be much stronger in the tropi- ates impacts on food supply, coastal needs of countries of the South. In cal areas of the planet, where pre- flooding, lack of access to fresh wa- the most offensive way and with cisely the most impoverished and ter sources, etc. millions of victims of the climatic vulnerable populations live. In all cases, the conclu- disaster, among the World Bank Although adaptation sion is that climate change and the plans are included insurance pro- could reduce the impacts climate adaptation efforts by Southern na- grams, the elimination of legal bar- change will produce, it will not tions will make the Millennium Ob- riers which will impede the private eliminate them because up until jectives unreachable. sector to invest in energy, direct for- now too much time has been wast- Oxfam has calculated eign investment and the broaden- ed and nothing has been done. In that such adaptation will represent ing of credit for the energy sector. spite of the different portfolios for a minimum cost of 50 billion dol- A credit portfolio that will impact mitigation and adaptation lars per year. At the same time the trigger foreign debt in the countries it is urgent to prevent the dead of United Nations Development Pro- of the South is also expected. thousands of people and the dis- gram (u n d p ) says that these values A good portion of these placement and victimization of will reach the 100 billion per year adaptation costs, according to the millions within the next few years. mark. Christian Aid also coincides w b , will have to be covered with Currently the plans for adaptation with these figures. What is certain credits, with Official Development that are being contemplated are is that nobody knows exactly how Assistance (o d a ), with direct for- directed towards the reduction of much it will cost to ensure that the eign investment or with national these vulnerabilities and to facilitate peoples of the South would be less investment. That is to say, more adaptation in face of those climatic affected by climate change impacts, business for the multinational com- disasters . The key sectors that need because it is very difficult to prevent panies, probably more social and to be attended with the adaptation future damages with accuracy. The environmental impacts and obvi- plans are agriculture, water resourc- u n f c c c has proposed that, never- ously a bigger weight on foreign es and infrastructure among others. theless, there are plans that should debt. Obviously, adaptation plans have be considered urgently and imme- to be complementary in character diately, for which it has requested to those of emission mitigation and to the most impoverished countries should include a series of needs like to elaborate National Adaptation infrastructure, technology, knowl- Programs of Action (n a p a s) to Cli- edge, planning, etc., etc. mate Change.

56 A NORTH-SOUTH VISION

EMERGENCY PLANS IN that Spain has a carbon debt due nanced through a 50 million dollar c o g e f THE COUNTRIES OF THE to 2 emissions of almost 15 billion contribution from the ‘s own SOUTH TO CONFRONT dollars (the debt that Spain claims funds. CLIMATE CHANGE from Southern countries is around However, how can one 14 billion dollars, which is less than calculate the true costs of adapta- c o • The design of social protection what it would owe just for the 2 tion and reparation? How can one programs in the communities emissions). This is based on a 100 know how much is this Climate • To promote protection against euro penalty that would be applied Change social and ecological debt? c o flooding to the emitters, for each 2 ton Although it is difficult to put a price • To create storage for food, that will exceed the assigned quota to the unmeasurable, it is possible to c o water and medicine in the European Union internal 2 do some numeric exercises to put in • International initiatives for river emission market. evidence the big difference that ex- management According to the calcula- ists between this debt and the one • To protect electric facilities tions of Spain’s Debt Observatory the countries of the North claim, from flooding on Globalization, in 1990 the Car- as well as to know how to confront • To protect transport systems bon debt due to historic emissions the damages provoked by climatic from flooding went up to 980 billon dollars and disasters. • To built refuges and emergency since then this debt has been in- What has not been said is watercrafts creasing. Instead of giving gifts or that there are other innovative ways • To support the improvement of credits, the countries responsible to find procedures for mitigation as the irrigation systems for climate change should start giv- well as for adaptation. For example • To strengthen highways and to ing back this money so the coun- the Yasuni/i t t proposal presented protect factories, schools and tries of the South can start adapting by the Ecuadorian government that hospitals themselves and repairing the dam- plans to leave the petroleum in the • To built contention walls ages caused by Climate Change. subsoil and which will avoid mil- • To reforest On the contrary, we are forced to lions tons of emissions in exchange • To raise the foundations of acquire more debt from the interna- for a trust fund, which will be in- houses tional financing institutions. vested in social development, al- • To drain glacier lakes Although several interna- ternative energy development, and • To relocate communities tional funds have been created for infrastructure plans including those this purpose, these only represent for adaptation. According to the Adapta- charity in comparison to the enor- While the countries of the tion Financing Index designed by mous carbon debt. North make advances in their mil- Oxfam, 28 countries are responsible These funds are: the lionaire programs for adaptation, to finance the adaptation of the de- Global Environmental Fund (g e f ) the countries of the South continue veloping countries: for Less Advanced Countries (fi- offering their lives, and their in- • The United States and the Eu- nanced by voluntary donations); novative proposals to contribute ropean Union together should Special Climate Change Fund g e f to the holding back of the impacts contribute around 75% of the nec- (financed by voluntary donations); which are not being heard or paid essary funds (The United States a the Adaptation Fund (the first aid attention to. little over 40% and the European flow will come from a 2% tax on the Union a little over 30%); carbon credits generated under the * Ivonne Yánez, Oilwatch • Japan, Canada, Australia and Clean Development Mechanisms the Republic of Korea should (c d m ), financed by companies from contribute with around 20% of the the contaminant countries); the costs. Strategic Priority on Adaptation, The Debt Observatory also g e f , to evaluate the capacity- on Globalization has calculated building adaptation measures, fi-

57 CHAPTER 6

MITIGATING Area # of Registered EMISSIONS OR Projects October MITIGATING 2007 IMPACTS* Energy industries 559 Energy demand 14 There are several Manufacturing industries 65 ways to mitigate climate Chemical industries 14 change, to reduce the emissions, some are too evident Transport 1 like not extracting more Mining/mineral production 5 hydrocarbons or conserving Fugitive emissions from fuels 85 the forest and which could (solid, oil and gas) be immediate, and others Fugitive emissions from produc- 16 the more costly ones re- tion and consumption of halocar- quire of changes in policies bons and sulphur hexafluoride and in live and production Waste handling and disposal 221 styles mainly in the North. In the first case, there are Afforestation and reforestation 1 countries which are setting the example like Costa Rica profits, like in a bazaar (http:// Every quantitative esti- or Ecuador, or those with www.cdmbazaar.net/default.asp), mation of mitigation costs is done big extensions of well con- instead of facing the real problem: according to market tools, the level served tropical forest –es- fossil fuel burning. of commercialization of emissions, pecially by the indigenous To the effects of mitiga- of the application of Clean Devel- people who live there-, but tion plans and cost calculation, opment Mechanisms (c d m ), of in the second case, instead the experts have developed a series joint implementation, of volunteer of taking urgent measures of scenarios, which illustrate how agreements. The entire debate these get postpone espe- the future will be according to dif- goes around getting to know how cially in function of how of ferent social, economic, political, much the mitigation will cost and a good business they could and technological factors. These gets entangle in financial terms and end up being. scenarios allow in theory to see the mechanisms like “market poten- type, magnitude, calendar, and the tial” or “economic potential”. That Among the proposed so- costs of mitigation measures. Nev- is, that the industry as well as the lutions at the international level to ertheless, they refuse to analyze a investors evidently see a great busi- confront climate change, several post-oil scenario. ness with climate change when af- mitigation programs are discussed. firming the “considerable econom- Although, this is refer to the stabi- lizing of green house gas emissions Region Number of % or to its concentration in the atmo- Projects c d m sphere, the international negotia- Africa 21 2,59 tions on mitigation have been con- Latin-America and the 295 36,33 centrated in a debate around the Caribbean market more than a true reduction Asia - Pacific 490 60,34 of gas emissions to the level estab- Others 6 0,74 lished by the Convention. These 812 conversations are around costs and benefits, and around finding Total reductions, approxi- 169,000.000 c o the best business and the bigger mately Tonnes 2 eq.

58 A NORTH-SOUTH VISION

ic potential to reduce emissions velopment assistance, technology erate new impacts, environmental bellow current levels before 2030”. transference and of course public problems and social and ecologi- According to the i p c c , to and private credits. For instance, cal conflicts, since they would be continue emitting green house gas- it is consider that the investments generating new cases of territory ses but keeping the increase of the in energy infrastructure, will reach confiscation, forest co-optation, mean global temperature under 2°c an amount close to 20’000.000 of land concentration, intensification would cost to whomever contami- millions until 2030, which includes of injustice, human rights viola- u s c o nates close to $100/t 2, that is technological changes, energy re- tions, and foreign debt. All of this why industrialized countries from conversion, gas projects, agro-fu- constitutes an enormous ecologi- the North want that these costs els, long run energy plants, etc. It cal debt, because of carbon debt be assumed by countries from the is consider that 65% of the mitiga- due to historic abusive emissions, South, saving billions of dollars so tion potential is found in tropical as well as for the local damages they do not have to reduced their countries. during extraction, transport, and consumption, and sacrificed their The World Bank is one hydrocarbon refining, but also be- energivorous societies. Although of the main actors in this field, cause of the social and ecological the emission reduction goals have since is calculated that it has a debt generated by the mitigation a lot to do with principles of justice portfolio of carbon market proj- projects of the p k , c d m , and others, and equity and of common but dif- ects for over 1 billion dollars being and because of the financial debt ferentiated responsibilities, in real- one of the main beneficiaries of the our countries will have to acquire ity the contrary is what happens. c d m . The World Bank maintains to solve global warming impacts. In what is referred to a double moral because it wants to The industry and the estimations of mitigation costs, is present itself as the planet’s savior consumers of the North do not possible to state that there are two while it continues financing fossil want to see their live and produc- approaches. One that talks about fuel projects that will emit close to tion styles affected, neither their the application of policies, which 1.5 billion Tons of Carbon to the profitability diminish and do not would enable to mitigate emis- atmosphere. want to accept the uncomfortable sions, while the other already talks What is clear to the coun- reality that the only way of mitigat- about damage reparation costs tries of the South is that mitigation ing climate change is through not and adaptation measures, that’s to measures for emission reduction, burning more fossil fuels, say to mitigate climate change im- which are being propose through And it is here within this pacts. The first approach includes Kyoto -and post Kyoto- could gen- context that the proposal to live the the development of technological petroleum in the subsoil is present- projects that encompass among ed as the only and measurable way c o others hybrid vehicles, under- of mitigating 2 emissions, and at c o ground storage of 2, or those en- the same time avoiding the lost of ergy reconversion projects among natural forests, which felling will which are agro-fuels, carbon sink contribute even more to climate and even nuclear energy. However, change. It is not about looking for these projects instead of mitigating the best business offers to save the emissions as well as damages in planet and its people, but rather many cases will carry bigger emis- taking revolutionary measures as sions and bigger problems for the the ones mentioned. local populations where they will be implemented. * Ivonne Yánez, Oilwatch

The investments pre- CO2-Emissions between sented for mitigation are within 1800 and 1988 the limits of clean mechanisms, direct foreign investment, official de-

59 CHAPTER 6

CARBON TRADING* rights which they can then parlay year by buying cheap pollution into high profits. In Europe, for rights from elsewhere? The United Nations instance, power generators are From a scientific point of Framework Convention on garnering hundreds of millions of view, one of the most hopeless as- Climate Change of 1992 pounds per year in windfall profits pects of carbon trading is that the had some good principles. just for pursuing business as usual, carbon credits flooding into the It helped focus attention on while ordinary citizens suffer high- market from such projects simply the issue, and recognized er electricity prices, low polluters can’t be verified to be climatically that the North, not the get nothing, and developers of effective. That means consultants South, was primarily re- renewable energy go begging. It’s and carbon accountants hired by sponsible for global warm- the “polluter earns” principle rather industry can make virtually any ing and had the bigger re- than the “polluter pays” principle. claim they want about how much sponsibility to act. But by What’s happened is that no sooner carbon they are “saving”. The re- 1997, with the Kyoto Pro- did the earth’s ability to clean its sulting dilemma for carbon trad- tocol, the huge complexi- own atmosphere of carbon dioxide ers is insoluble. On the one hand, ties of carbon trading had become valuable than it was con- their market needs a flow of cheap, begun to dominate interna- verted into private property and standardized credits. On the oth- tional negotiations. taken over by the rich. er, the harder they try to create this However, that’s only the flow, the less believable their car- It’s important to remem- beginning. Big polluters also ben- bon credits become, and the less ber that it was the u s that was be- efit from being able to buy cheap credible the market. hind the push to turn the Kyoto extra pollution rights from sup- Many ordinary people in Protocol into a charter for carbon posedly “carbon-saving” projects the South have more immediate trading. Europe and the South that they invest in abroad. For ex- concerns about carbon trading. As were at first very skeptical, and ample, a British cement firm or oil a rule, carbon credits are being gen- only later caved in to us pressure. company that wants to continue erated not by green entrepreneurs Although the us later withdrew business as usual but hasn’t been or industries moving away from from the Kyoto Protocol, a lot of given enough free pollution per- fossil fuels but by local environ- us business was, and remains, in mits by its government can make mental offenders, while communi- favor of it. up the shortfall simply by buying ties defending their lands against It takes a lot of work to lowcost credits from, say, a “car- oil exploitation or coal-fired power make something tradable. Over bon-saving” wind farm in India, a plants are being ignored. It is big the centuries, it’s become possible scheme to destroy globe-warming polluters, after all, who tend to be to market some things – silver, h f c refrigerants in Korea, an ener- in the best position to hire carbon soybeans, cars – but not others. gy efficiency programme in South consultants, liaise with officials Climate change mitigation is one Africa, or a project to burn landfill and pay to get projects registered of those others. One day, one or gas to generate electricity in Bra- with the u n carbon market. two of the obstacles that stand in zil. This channels a further flood The bright side to this the way of effective carbon trading of easy pollution rights into the al- picture is that I don’t think it will might be overcome. But most will ready huge pool at the disposal of take big business very long to get never be. the North’s corporate sectors. used to the fact that carbon trad- One difficulty is that all In addition to being un- ing doesn’t work. Business is used current attempts to trade in car- just, all this merely encourages to dealing with untraded things. In bon help the worst polluters go on the worst polluters of the North fact, its life depends on it. It takes polluting. Today, the industrial to delay the long-term structural advantage of physical and intellec- sectors most responsible for the shift away from fossil fuels that the tual commons of all kinds. It gets climate crisis are getting huge free climate problem demands. Why handouts from the state. It uses blocks of newly-created pollution innovate if you can get by year to waste dumps for free. It could not

60 A NORTH-SOUTH VISION

survive without family relations, patron-client relations and so forth. These are axes of de-development: It understands and depends on the fact that the world is not in fact • De-urbanize, to restitute populations ruled by markets. And it’s survived in a human scale, supplying their needs in the local very well throughout its history market with local energy and food sources. without pollution trading. • De-globalize trade and transport of Northerners have no goods, particularly agricultural resources and food, to moral authority to tell Southerners attack the main demand on liquid fuels: the refriger- not to use coal, oil or gas. Given ated trucks that transport the meat and milk chain, their history, they have no right the planes that transport flowers and tropical fruit, to do so. But Southerners do have the gigantic cereal ships powered on diesel to take that authority and that right. And soy to China and the EU, etc.; that generate a fla- many are exercising it. For every grant negative energy balance, and that sustain the Southern government pushing a illusory notion of “growth” fossil fuel-intensive path of indus- • De-technologize food production, re- trialization, there are dozens of placing current agribusiness, Green Revolution and local Southern movements fight- Genetically Engineered food production systems with ing oil drilling, coal mining, land those modeled on an agro-ecological model inherent seizures, polluting power plants, in the food sovereignty proposal based on biodiver- gas pipelines and carbon offsets, as sity, soil nutrition, and indigenous knowledge. well as exploring and experiment- • De-petrolize the economy; the best pol- ing with more people-friendly and icy against global warming is the elimination of fossil climate-friendly energy and trans- fuels, leaving oil, gas and coal underground, where port alternatives. they belong. This must not be confused with fiction- The real action on climate al solutions as a “decarbonized economy”, meaning change has always taken place else- to promote the carbon market, clean development where, and will always take place mechanisms and the Joint Implementation that per- elsewhere. Governments in indus- petuate the destructive petroleum model in the con- trialized countries will need to shift text of the logic of a free market. subsidies from fossil fuels to re- • De-centralize the generation and distri- newable energy. They will need to bution of energy, through technologies that will not undertake sweeping public invest- reproduce dependency and will guarantee supply to ments in efficiency and transport local populations of their needs, that is distinct from to give their citizens wider choices privatisation of energy, window dressed as “provid- about how they use energy, and ing energy access to the poor”. In other words, recu- apply conventional regulation and perate and defend the principle of energy as a service taxation in deeper ways. Mean- and not a business and commodity offered for sale in while, communities from Nigeria the marketplace. It is within this context that Energy to Alaska will continue to resist Sovereignty must be guaranteed. oil drilling and coal mining on their lands and continue to defend or develop their own low-carbon ways of life, and will have to be supported rather than thwarted in those struggles.

* Larry Lohmann, Durban Group

61 CHAPTER 6

KYOTO HAS FAILED* ing a gas pipeline to Thailand. The massive coal deposits a growing juggernaut goes on, trampling in- supply source. Kyoto has failed. De- digenous peoples and biodiversity While the technology for spite so many admonitions under its wheels. capturing some carbon emissions from the IPCC, the reality Oil and gas prices are still from coal and storing them un- is that emissions of carbon too cheap, in the sense that neither derground is becoming available dioxide in the world are go- local damages (“externalities” if you at a cost, current prices for carbon ing up by over 3 per cent wish), nor their effects on climate emissions on the European market per year. This is the failure change, are included. But their provide no incentive to do so. It is of the countries that signed prices are rising rapidly because simply cheaper to pollute now and up to Kyoto, and even more peak-oil and later peak-gas are pay it off later. Or rather to pollute so, of those like the United fast approaching. Peak oil refers in Europe and then invest in a tree States who stayed outside to the maximum output of barrels plantation or other c d m project in the timid Kyoto framework, produced in the world, after which the developing world. Because of and also of those not in- time extraction will decrease while this trend, human-produced car- cluded in Annex I of the Rio potential demand will still rise. bon dioxide emissions in the world de Janeiro treaty of 1992. Another effect of peak oil is that keep increasing in a trajectory more and more energy is needed to that means that a concentration The world is currently pump the remaining oil out of the of 450 ppm would be reached in burning about 85 million barrels ground, what is referred to as e r o i little more than thirty years, while of oil per day. As we approach (energy return on energy input.) according to the i p c c emissions peak-oil (at 90 mbd? 100 mbd?), In contrast, the supplies should come down by 60 per cent the price of oil goes up and up de- of coal are plentiful, and there is in the next few decades. spite the efforts to get more of it by no o p e c of coal to restrict supply. means foul or fair as in Iraq, in the Therefore the first half of the 21st HISTORY OF CLIMATE Niger Delta, in Amazon and other century is likely to be an era of coal. CHANGE “commodity frontiers”. In Canada, Already in the 20th century the use rocketing oil prices have finally of coal increased by a factor of six. The intellectual history made exploitation of the Alberta The world’s fastest growing econo- of the enhanced greenhouse effect oil sands profitable, whereby one mies, China and India, are fuelling is not yet common knowledge. It barrel of oil equivalent is needed their industrialization with cheap, begins at least over one hundred to produce 3-5 barrels of oil. The readily available coal, counteract- year ago, when Svante Arrhenius Hubbert curve is named after the ing reductions in energy intensity from Sweden, a Nobel prize win- geologist who 60 years ago predict- elsewhere. The trouble is that coal ner in chemistry, published some ed that the United States peak-oil is socially and environmentally a calculations on the effects on tem- would take place in the early 1970s. very dirty business, whether pro- perature of doubling, or tripling, The road down the Hubbert curve cured by underground or open cast the contents of carbon dioxide in will be terrible. Downhill will be mining. Coal usually contains sul- the atmosphere, with results very harder than uphill. fur, which causes acid rain. Per unit close to the present ones. In 1938, The price of oil is fol- of energy delivered, coal produces electrical engineer G.C. Callendar lowed by the price of natural gas. considerably more carbon dioxide published an article explaining There are also conflicts around than oil or gas. Nevertheless, the that the combustion of coal would the world on gas extraction, like in fear of emissions caps has not de- produce a slight increase in tem- Bolivia a few years ago where the terred a boom in the construction peratures on the globe. According gas contracts cost some dozens of of coal-fired power plants, even in to him, there was nothing to worry human lives and a change of presi- “progressive” European countries, about. Everybody knew that burn- dent, and in Burma where Unocal with Romanian and Bulgarian ing coal was good for the economy infringed human rights when build- and human well-being, and the

62 A NORTH-SOUTH VISION

COUNTRIES WITH ECOLOGICAL DEBT AND CREDIT

increase in temperature was also Legend good because it would extend the margin of cultivation to the North. Twenty years later, at the end of National Ecological footprints relative to the available the 1950s, Roger Revelle, protago- biocapacity nist of Alan Gore’s film, and other scientists, sounded a cry of alarm. Eco-debt Systematic measurements of car- Footprint more than 50% greater than biocapacity bon dioxide concentrations in the Footprint between 0-50% greater than biocapacity atmosphere were made. In the late 1980s, the International Panel for Eco-credit Climate Change began to get go- Biocapacity between 0-50% greater than footprint ing. Biocapacity more than 50% greater than footprint This intellectual history Insufficient Data is interesting for it own sake (late lessons from early warnings) but also because it bears on the historical responsibility for climate change that falls on the industrial counties. Should the responsibility go back to 1992 and the Rio de Ja- neiro treaty? Should it go back to 1960, or even further back?

* Joan Martínez Alier and Leah Temper

63 CHAPTER 6

OIL POLICIES FROM from the tax (the Daly-Correa tax?) corresponded to them on the basis THE SOUTH* should go for poverty-reduction of population. The difference was (including energy-poverty reduc- 50% of total emissions, some 3000 The new industrial- tion), and for alternative energies million tons at the time. Contem- ized countries such as Chi- (meaning geothermal, wind and plating the increasing marginal na and India do not want to solar, and not, let us hope, agro- cost of reduction, the first 1000 talk about climate change. fuels or civil-military nuclear prolif- million tons maybe could be re- When they do, they argue eration). Correa stated that the tax duced at a cost of, say, $15 per ton, that they should have the could be of 3 per cent of the price of but then the cost would increase same opportunity to grow oil, for starts. There is in this pro- very much. Taking an average of as the West did. On their posal an element of economic jus- $25, then a total annual subsidy of side, the oil exporting coun- tice (many rich countries put heavy $75 billion was forthcoming from 1 tries (as well as the coal ex- taxes on imported oil and gas, South to North . porting countries, such as against the exporting countries). The North has occupied Colombia in Latin America), There is also an element of climate the sinks (such as the oceans) and did not want to hear about justice, based on a new awareness the atmosphere as a temporary de- the enhanced greenhouse (among at least one of the smallest posit. They are debtors and they effect. The curb or the cap o p e c members) of the realities of should pay, as Anil Agarwal and on emissions, if it ever the enhanced greenhouse effect, Sunita Narain from the Centre for came, would mean lowering and the international distribution Science and Environment of Del- the demand for fossil fuels. of its causes and effects. Such reali- hi, argued already in 1991 making Already in 1992 Saudi Ara- ties are apparent in Ecuador with the case for equal per capita emis- bia started to complain that glaciers in the Andes losing ice sions allowances. they would claim compen- cover, and future sea-rise threaten- The North has occupied sation against those who ing Guayaquil. the sinks (such as the oceans) and were ready to spoil the oil the atmosphere as a temporary de- market by unproven alarms 1. Ecological debts posit. They are debtors and they about climate change. To- should pay, as Anil Agarwal and day the official position of Sunita Narain from the Centre for Other voices from the o p e c remains the same, only Science and Environment of Delhi south ask in Bali for recognition of slightly modified of late by argued already in 1991 making the the Ecological Debts or the Envi- proposing to constitute a case for equal per capita emissions ronmental Liabilities owed from fund to subsidize research allowances. North to South. There is a public on carbon “sequestration” and a private aspect to this. technologies. Second, from the point of view of corporate accountabil- First, countries which Therefore, it is all the ity, many oil companies have done historically have produced and more remarkable that at the o p e c terrible damage to the local inhab- continue to produce more carbon meeting in Riad on 18 November itants and to other forms of life in dioxide per capita than the rest 2007, president Rafael Correa of the name of profit. Again, Ecuador have a “carbon debt”. Jyoti Parikh, Ecuador, aware of a speech by Her- provides some lessons. The court a previous member of the u n Inter- man Daly made in 2001 in Vienna proceedings against Texaco (now national Panel on Climate Change to the leaders of the cartel , pro- Chevron-Texaco) that started in argued in 1995 that the average posed a new eco-tax on oil exports New York under the Alien Tort global emissions were about one by o p e c countries with the explicit Claims Act in 1993 are now reach- ton per person per year. Industri- aim of lowering a little the demand 1 Parikh, J.K. (1995), ‘Joint Imple- alized countries produced three- for oil in order to diminish carbon mentation and the North and South Co- fourths of these emissions, instead dioxide emissions. The proceeds operation for Climate Change, Interna- of the one-fourth that would have tional Environmental Affairs, 7, 1 64 A NORTH-SOUTH VISION

ing a conclusion in a court in Lago organizations and support groups Agrio, an oil-polluted township in in Ecuador and abroad that has This project, if success- Sucumbios province. There might pushed the case. ful, could be copied elsewhere – be an agreement out of court. The for instance in U’Wa territory in damages (because of oil spills, gas 2. THE YASUNÍ-ITT Colombia, in the Niger Delta, in burning, over 600 pools of polluted some of the worse coal mines in extraction water and the resultant PROPOSAL the world… In fact, in the Niger cancer cases, extinct tribes, and Delta, the Ogoni and Ijaw activ- lost biodiversity) are now being Finally, another innova- ists have often pointed out the quantified in money terms because tive oil policy coming from civil inconsistency between all the in- this is the nature of the court case society is the i t t Yasuni proposal, ternational rhetoric on “saving the (a civil suit for damages and not a also in Ecuador. The idea was first world’s climate” and the local reali- criminal case). expressed in the Oilwatch position ty of oil extraction and gas burning paper in Kyoto in 1997: keeping at the cost of so many human lives. The damages caused by fossil fuels in the ground deserves Shell has never been held account- Texaco between 1970 and 1990 “carbon credits”. Thus, in the Ish- able for the damage done and the in terms of lost human health, the pingo-Tambococha-Tiputini field death of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his destruction of local indigenous in the Yasuni National Park, about comrades in 1995. At present Shell groups, soil and water polluted 920 million barrels of heavy oil continues to flare gas despite new and loss of biodiversity, are huge. would remain in the ground in per- laws prohibiting the practice. Texaco made a conscious decision petuity or in a moratorium sine die, not to re-inject the water, standard in an area inhabited by indigenous As the Bali meeting takes practice in the US at the time, nor groups, some living in voluntary place, there are new voices from to line the waste pits. These dam- isolation, and that holds unique the South that are clamouring ages could be estimated in terms biodiversity. An ancillary benefit to make themselves heard. They of saved costs, or in terms of the of keeping this oil in the ground are demanding justice and refus- economic value of human suffer- (apart from respecting Nature and ing the alms offered by the North ing and nature spoiled. A claim for human rights), is that the carbon in the form of so-called flexibility about 6 billion dollars has often dioxide that would be produced mechanisms and “adaptation loans” been mentioned. The present val- when burning the oil elsewhere, which transform the polluter pays ue of this sum (at a rate of interest is “repressed” underground. The principle into the “polluted adapt” of only 5 per cent, and taking also avoided emissions of carbon diox- principle. After nearly twenty years into account the loss of purchas- ide are of the order of 410 million of ineffectual climate change poli- ing power of the dollar in the last tons from the oil, plus some more tics dominated by the North, Bali twenty or thirty years) would ex- from the avoided deforestation. too is doomed to failure if it does ceed 20 billion dollars. Ecuador is asking for a part of the not listen to the polluted. money from outside in recognition The lesson from Lago of its foregone monetary revenue. * Joan Martínez Alier and Leah Agrio is that oil, coal, gas compa- At present, there is strong sup- Temper nies can no longer get away with port inside the government of Ec- not paying for their social and en- uador for this project, which was vironmental liabilities, even when launched by the then Minister of they are operating in places where Energy, Alberto Acosta, early in human life is cheap and the de- 2007. Acosta is now the president struction of Nature is not carried of the Assembly that is writing the into the bottom line of the profit- new Constitution: Acosta has stat- and-loss account. Since 1993, it ed that the i t t region and other has been civil society, through its natural parks should be declared out of bounds for the oil industry.

65 CHAPTER 7

KYOTO FAILURE... Oil consumption causes debt and maintaining in a lot of OIL IGNORED the emissions with a greenhouse cases repression models and inter- DELIBERATELY* effect. This is why every oil activity nal corruption, have to contribute has a debt with climate and with to this liberation. They have to cre- humanity. ate the conditions so that it would The Kyoto proto- be possible to stop exploiting oil, col has failed. The coun- so that the direct responsibles tries with obligations to re- How to confront global warming? won’t remain unpunished, so that duce their emissions that the ecosystems in the south can be cause the greenhouse ef- • Attacking the capitalist produc- recovered, and provide the capaci- fect have done too little, tion and consumption based in fos- ties to confront the consequences and done it wrong…. The sil fuels of the climate disaster in the most emissions trade, the clean The problem is not only vulnerable areas. development mechanism the consumption or fossil fuels • Create the conditions so that or the joint implementa- burning but the whole oil cycle, the tropical countries can conserve tion are formulas that leave starting with the exploration, then their forest because they have a aside the oil industry, the extraction and refining. fundamental role to play in climate number one responsible You can’t deal with the is- regulation for global warming. These sue of consumption without apply- Tropical forests have mechanisms aim to trans- ing real measures over extraction. a strong connection with water fer the responsibilities and Production and consumption are and climate. Mature forests with the impacts to the South part of the same problem and have a wide vegetation area per unit, of the world, creating new to be attacked together. by holding up water, maintain the threats for the peoples: oc- • Creating the conditions so that ecosystem equilibrium and local cupied territories by plan- the countries of the South that temperature. The tropical forests tations, mortgaged land, depend on fossil fuels - due to the absorb a great quantity of solar ra- displacements, expropria- international market organization diation, and propitiate cloud’s for- tion, forests given to pri- - are able to stop extracting it. mation that reflect the solar energy vate businesses, privatised There are many coun- to the out space, which is a funda- protected areas or pushes tries of the South of the world that mental issue in controlling climate for other energy projects depend on fossil fuels for their in- change. such as hydroelectricity or comes, and that need these money Maintaining the forests agrofuels, that occupy ag- to pay their suffocating external and taking care of them provides ricultural lands, natural for- debts. These countries have to free not only local benefits to thou- est areas and that deprive themselves of these two ways of sands of local peoples whose lives the local communities from dependence and oppression that and wellbeing have to be secured their rights. impoverish them from an environ- by the respective national states, mental point of view and that de- but benefits for all the humanity. The emissions market capitalize them from an economi- • Avoiding to create new ways assumes, in practice, a subsidy to cal point of view. of colonialisms over conservation the contaminating business and a On the other hand, the and climate. The decisions have to stimulus to the highly consuming highly consuming oil countries be democratic. countries, to maintain their pro- that have a historical ecologi- The mechanisms of emis- duction and consumption models. cal debt with the South for hav- sion’s trade and the different ways In addition most of the projects ing benefited from their natural of carbon trade proposed by Kioto being developed under the Kyoto wealth, for having occupied the are new ways of colonialism that scheme has false and non verifiable atmosphere abusively, for impos- affect the rights of the communi- emissions’ reductions. ing a dependency model with the ties and the national states.

66 DECLARATIONS

At a national level, oil to be protected from repression but This is why Oilwatch producing countries have to start also rewarded for their true contri- proposes to initiate the path that a wide and participative debate bution to the planet stability. will lead to new international com- about the consequences of this Initiatives such as the promises. type of development based in fossil one from Ecuador that demands a fuels extraction, that has provoked compensation for the 50% of what *Fourth session period irreversible impacts, over how to the State will gain from the oil ex- of the special working group deal with climate change, forest ploitation of i t t , based on the dif- about the compromises of the an- conservation and the natural heri- ferentiated responsibility due to nex 1 parts with adjustment to the tage, energy sovereignty, etc. climate change. Kyoto protocol. Vienna august 27 Procedures are needed More alternatives like to august 31. to confront the exploration, pro- this one are needed to eliminate cedures that stop the opening the emissions trade because these of wells, that give alternatives to are evasive actions, harmful to the the countries, specially the tropi- responsibilities and that instead of cal ones so that they can maintain solutions, create new ways of colo- their oil underground. nization. Oilwatch proposed 10 At the international level years ago a moratorium to the ex- a proposal like this will aloud the pansion of the oil frontier, and has transformation of the international also proposed that the peoples who logic in climate change. resist this activities should not only

INDIGENOUS GROUPS AND NIGHT LIGHTS

Indigenous Groups Night Lights

0 2500 Kilometers

67 CHAPTER 7

DECLARATION ON and speed in which workers and The United States together with BEHALF OF DE- products move around, and are Occidental Europe, to whom to- DEVELOPMENTISM* exchanged about the globe also day China and the minority elites depend on fossil fuels. Now, be- of the South are added, are the THE PATH WE PROPOSE cause automobiles, urban areas are main consumers of energy. China, FOR THE SOUTH being designed, with construction the great factory of the world, re- and expansion of the megalopolis produces the model of production Agrofuels and and the occupation or urban space and consumption created by the the generation of energy and territories. North so that it supplies the glob- through biomass as a whole, In the current paradigm al market with everything while that has been promoted by of “growth” oriented towards the the North and South consumes. governments, corporations, integration of the market and glob- We understand that the model of development agencies, the al trade, agrofuels are upheld as growth of China is not a model for United Nations, the finan- gradual substitutes for oil to sup- or of, the South. cial international institu- port environmentally unsustain- The demand for energy tions and other agents in- able patterns of production and and commodities to supply and terested in their production consumption in the North. The maintain the life style of the societ- and their international trade way of life promoted by the North ies in the North, translated daily – does not change, but per- and the elites of the South, best ex- in food, wardrobe, heating, hous- petuate the model of pro- pressed in the so-called “American ing and transport, pigeonholes the duction and consumption way of life “ must be transformed. universal ideal way of life, wellbe- of the modern, urban and industrial civilization that has led to inequality in the world, wars, poverty, and environmental destruction.

The ending of the petroleum civilization and the reproduction of capitalism. The reproduction of the current western pillaging civilization, whose doctrine is globalized neoliberalism, has fossil hydrocarbons as its material base. All the driving forces behind the production, trafficking and global marketing of commodities depend on hydrocarbons: the oil industry, the agro food industry, the pharmaceutical companies, of textile fibres, the industries involved in the production of de- tergents, cosmetics, and explo- sives, celluloid, plastic in general, construction materials, packaging, domestic appliances, etc. In the same way, the global transport of peoples and goods , the mobility

68 DECLARATIONS ing and “progress” aggressively caused the loss of 75 % of biodiver- cal structural transformation of the promoted through globalization as sity throughout the last century, whole global economy and of our a universal standard for humanity. according to Food and Agricul- way of life and the dismantling of The materiality of every- ture Organisation (f a o ), besides the macro energy system that sus- thing that is part of the daily life of having promoted the destruction tains and guarantees the current the “developed” countries depends of local agriculture and markets global power relations. entirely on an energy and ecologi- through the imposition of a glob- We are attempting to cal irrational demand, historically al agro- food regime controlled by open this debate in the heart of built through the constant plunder agribusiness. Indeed, the corpo- the “left wing” sectors in our differ- of the nature and knowledge of the rations that control the industrial ent regions of the globe, restating peoples of the South. chain boasts the highest concen- in these radical terms this offer to For the South this “pe- tration of power in the world. overcome capitalism at this histori- troleum” model perpetuates the We understand that the cal moment. unequal exchange, technological only way of overcoming the climat- Because of the strategic dependence, indebtedness, impov- ic and energy crises that threatens role of the Latin-American region erishment of peoples and dispos- the continuity of the Life of the in the promotion and installation session of their territory and their planet is the overcoming capital- of the global model of Agro energy, sacred spaces. We have experi- ism. and bearing in mind the Biofuel’s enced, from the South, that this A transition is needed International Conference, sup- way of life that a minority of the towards a post-petroleum society ported by the u n set to take place planet enjoys, is maintained by the and a new sense of “development” in Brazil in July 2008, we reaffirm continued exploitation of nature built within a framework that is de- our task of promoting the “Social- and human labour in order to feed signed to overcome capitalism on ism of the 21st century” the flow of commodities and ser- ecological bases. In order for this vision vices that have historically caused Energy issues and food to be a part of a political program the climatic changes, global warm- production are the concrete and of the post petroleum era, we, the ing and the colonial domination of indivisible axes of resistance for undersigned commit ourselves to the North over the South. the construction of another soci- reframe our positions – without Synthesis: the underly- etal project and the building of any concessions to capital – as im- ing logic of agrofuels as gradual new relations between peoples, posed by the current energy and substitutes for oil is to support the co-existing as one with nature, - in ecological crisis. global circulation of commodities order to subvert the colonial logic and the environmentally unsus- and subordination inherent in cap- * r a l l t tainable demand of energy and italism. resources. This is done to supply We agree that the po- and promote as universally ideal, litical logic of the new global soci- the lifestyle of the North steeped ety in this path of transition - and in the historical logic of colonial the strategy of autonomy of the exploitation of ecosystems and peoples over their territories - will peoples of the South. have to be oriented by the central Our answer to the de- premise of guaranteeing Energy ceit of the so called positive energy Sovereignty in harmony and com- balance of agrofuels is to point to plementing the radical defence of the undeniable history of ecologi- Food Sovereignty. cal and social devastation wrought Therefore, the only con- bythe fossil fuel- dependent Green sistent debate on agrofuels must Revolution and concomitantly, be framed in a new paradigm of de- industrial agriculture. This has development that includes a radi-

69 CHAPTER 7

c o THE agreed not to produce more 2 to vices and would not lead to any INTERNATIONAL pay countries, which decide not to form of property rights or use over ECO-LOGICAL CALL* place their oil resources on the mar- the area of the project, contrasting ket, with donations conditioned in with those proposals questioned PROPOSES TO LINK relation to external debt. by local communities which imply THE ISSUES OF • Add to this international com- a loss of their sovereign rights. CONSERVATION OF munity effort, a fund to build inter- There exists an initiative BIODIVERSITY, CLIMATE national funds to pay for the exis- at an international level from vari- CHANGE AND THE RIGHTS tent value of important protected ous foundations and political sec- OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES areas at a global level, in threat of tors to destine funds to support being destroyed if the intention these types of initiatives. On the The international of submitting them to exploration other hand, countries which have eco-logical call, is a com- and exploitation activities contin- ratified the Kyoto Protocol and mon strategy to save the ues. form part of Annex 1, have the obli- areas of greatest diversity, gation of assigning funds to reduce leaving the captured carbon green house gasses especially c o . underground, based on the 2. Expected results 2 Climate Change Agreement and other international The proposal implies lo- Therefore we propose this meet- agreements via which the cal, national and in global benefits. ing of experts on Protected Areas worlds governments com- It coherently articulates global con- proceed to: mitted to conserve the servation objectives, protection of worlds biodiversity, reduce economic, social, cultural, environ- • Form a commission of experts poverty, respect human mental and collective rights; relief to analyze national proposals that rights in general and those from foreign debt and solutions to arise from this context. of indigenous peoples in climate change. • 2Analyze technical and legal particular. If these activities are stopped it will avoid that new emis- routes by which States can regu- late adequately this decision and The proposal will be ap- sions of c o reach the atmosphere, 2 in the case of there being contracts plied in protected areas, threatened both due to the Carbon contents in or concessions, start a process of and affected areas by oil activities, the hydrocarbons underground as reverting them and evaluate socio- which are the main causes of Cli- well as the carbon contents of the environmental impacts in these ar- mate Change. forests which will not be logged for oil activities, which would ben- eas and the needs of environmental restoration and corresponding in- 1. Objective of the efit the whole of humanity; at the same time it guarantees the conser- demnities. proposal vation of cultures and biodiversity • Start a process to identify po- of human heritage. tential donors and create a capital • That national States abstain An indirect effect would fund to generate interest equiva- from extracting oil from protected be to reduce the pressures from lent to the revenues that the States areas, because it is incompatible foreign debt by freeing funds from would gain from exploitation. If with conservation. national budgets to be able to a future government violates the • That the States that abstain spend of social services and addi- clauses of the agreement the capi- from exploiting their resources in tionally governments would have tal fund would be returned to the protected areas be compensated at their disposal new resources for donors. for these decisions in the benefit of their national accounts. • Promote the proposal at an in- the planet. This proposal does not ternational level. • Achieve international commit- imply merchandizing of life or a * Oilwatch ments from countries that have payment for environmental ser-

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71 OILWATCH

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