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The oil dream is really a nightmare-Melinda Janki

Aug 07, 2019 News

Melinda Janki, an international lawyer on conservation , made the comment at one of her informative public lectures a few weeks ago that the oil dream is really a nightmare.
Janki, a Guyanese resident overseas, said, “This is the worst possible timing for Guyana because of global warming. Petroleum emits greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.
“Global warming in turn causes extreme temperatures, extreme weather, ocean acidification and rising sea levels.”
She went on to say that global warming will destroy life on the planet as a safe limit for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million (PPM). Globally it is already 415ppm so some countries have agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the industry.
Saudia Arabia is investing in renewable energy, while two of the world’s biggest countries, India and China, are engaging in and establishing huge renewable energy programmes.
Furthermore, Shell Oil is already supplying 700,000 households in the UK with 100% renewable energy and this is approximately more than the entire population of Guyana.
Oil companies now already have vast reserves of oil that they cannot burn. If an oil reserve cannot be burnt then it’s worthless. They constitute a carbon bubble in the global economy which is estimated to be between one and US$4 trillion.
She further noted that the Governor of the Bank of England has since asked them to write down these stranded fossil fuel assets, so in short oil has no future and one should not underestimate the speed at which change is taking place.
When the oil industry collapses the oil wells will have to be capped so that they don’t leak and kill marine life and the country will end up with the burden of wells that should never have been drilled in the first place, in addition Guyana will most likely have to pay for this capping and abandonment as well and this could run into billions of dollars.
Now is probably a good time to also start looking at the environment as the world faces two catastrophes Climate Change and Bio-diversity Collapse.
The country’s proposed oil venture will contribute to climate change and will destroy its Guyana’s rich biodiversity. In short the country is about to do the exact two things that will destroy the life systems of the planet.
Janki went on to say that “Liza Phase 1 is going to emit over 21 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and this is just from the project and not actually burning the petroleum when it comes up.”
“The EIA (Environmental Impact Analysis) says that the potential influence of greenhouse gases on the global climate change is not measurable with an acceptable level of confidence and therefore is not addressed in this EIA.”
In short, the people carrying out the assessment didn’t bother to mention anything about the impact that that amount of greenhouse gas emissions was going to have on global warming.
According to Esso’s EIA, Liza Phase 1 will be dumping 4,000 barrels of sewage into the ocean daily. At the end of the proposed 20 years project that would be equal to 1.2 billion gallons of sewage.
That’s basically a gallon of sewage for every barrel of oil in the reserve.
With this, sea levels will continue to rise and the coastland, capital city and the country’s agricultural sector is below sea level, basically all of it will disappear. People will have to relocate and that’s not a fair result for giving away the country’s wealth.
The oil industry should have never been considered much less started as this will mean trouble ahead for the country.

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