The Manx government is pressing ahead with fossil fuel exploration as a fierce debate rages in our near neighbour Ireland about continuing to develop new gas fields
“It is well established that, globally, already proven reserves of fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas, and peat – would, if directly combusted, guarantee a level of warming far in excess of the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Such a scale of failure in climate mitigation would be catastrophic for human welfare, is likely inconsistent with organised global civilisation, and would, incidentally, devastate the entire existing biosphere of planet Earth.
Accordingly, common sense appears to dictate that searching for further additional fossil fuel resources to add to this “bubble” of unburnable carbon is at best pointless, and at worst, risks diverting international capital away from desperately needed investment in clean (zero- or negative-CO2) energy infrastructure.”
Link to full article at Green News.ie here:
https://greennews.ie/troubling-endorsement-gas-ccac/
An added complication is that the site the Department for Enterprise has set aside for exploration is in the most radioactively polluted area of the NE Irish Sea adjacent to Sellafield which will lead to the remobilisation of contaminated sediments and associated increases in levels of elements such as Technetium 99.
Bernard Moffatt
Assistant General Secretary Celtic League (25 September, 2019)
