Balancing competitiveness and climate objectives: Bellona Europa’s insights on the Draghi Report
Introduction Competitiveness has been the dominating topic in EU political discussions in recent months and is set to be a key focus of the upcomi...
News
Publish date: March 13, 2019
News
The EU’s six year old Offshore Safety Directive, which was introduced in order to strengthen the safety of European oil and gas operations, is currently lying on the European Commission’s table for evaluation.
The directive constituted a welcome supplement when adopted, introducing union wide obligatory ex-ante emergency planning, strengthened liability for environmental damages and oil spill response effectiveness, as a key element in licensing considerations.
“This text is a first step in the direction of establishing an EU oversight over oil drilling activities,” Paal Frisvold, then Chairman of Bellona Europa, stated upon adoption.
First steps have to be followed by more steps however, and the current evaluation offers a chance to look at what is working and what still needs to be done in order to fulfill the aim of preventing major accidents in the wake of the disastrous Deepwater Horizon blowout.
The directive is not implemented in the state where Bellona is headquartered, Norway, which insists that the act is not EEA relevant.
At the Commission’s last evaluation workshop in Brussels, Bellona was the only civil society representative, facing an industry that overall seemed content with things as they are. For high-risk activities such as petroleum production, contentment equals vulnerability. Bellona has therefore joined forces with NGOs situated in petroleum producing states across Europe, in order to point out shortcomings that still needs to be remedied in order to reach the aim of the directive.
Measures that still need to be taken, in order to achieve the aim of preventing major accidents and limiting their consequences, include:
Introduction Competitiveness has been the dominating topic in EU political discussions in recent months and is set to be a key focus of the upcomi...
Russia is a world leader in the construction of nuclear power plants abroad. Despite the sanctions pressure on Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its nuclear industry has remained virtually untouched.
Today, the Bellona Foundation is launching the establishment of the Center for Marine Restoration in Kabelvåg, Lofoten. At the same time, collaboration agreements related to the center were signed with Norrøna, the University of Tromsø, the Lofoten Council and Blue Harvest Technologies
To ensure that Germany achieves its goal of climate neutrality by 2045, negative emissions are necessary, as depicted in the global IPCC scenarios.