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Severe weather forces campaigners to give up their perilous position on British-owned rig off the coast of Greenland

• Greenpeace 'shuts down' Arctic oil rig

Four Greenpeace activists who halted drilling by a British-owned oil exploration rig off Greenland have been arrested after they abandoned their occupation because of severe weather.

Greenlandic police arrested the four after high winds buffeted the Stena Don drilling rig overnight, forcing them to abandon mountaineering-style platforms they had suspended by ropes underneath the platform less than 48 hours earlier.

Morten Nielsen, deputy head of Greenland police, said the four men were rescued between 8pm and midnight local time last night using baskets and ropes lowered from the Stena Don's deck after severe winds and waves up to 6m (18ft) battered the platform.

He said it took about four hours to retrieve the protesters, who have now been arrested under Greenlandic regulations for breaching the 500m safety zone around the rig and under Danish criminal law for trespass.

"Basically we were readying ourselves for any eventuality but it worked out, what needed to be done was a rescue operation," said Nielsen.

He also revealed that the police seized Greenpeace's helicopter, which had flown from its protest ship the Esperanza to photograph the rig and Cairn's operations to stop nearby icebergs, yesterday in the town of Qertarsuaq.

He said the helicopter had been impounded as evidence, and also to ensure Greenpeace paid any fines or liabilities for its protests in Baffin Bay, which began 11 days ago. The four protesters will make their first court appearance in about 24 hours, after being transferred from the rig to the town of Aasiaat. The four could also be deported, instead of being prosecuted.

The activists' retreat is a setback for Greenpeace, which believed a longer-term occupation of the rig would be a serious blow to attempts by the Edinburgh-based exploration firm Cairn Energy to strike oil or gas before the intense Arctic winter sets in.

However, sources in the region had predicted when the four protesters clambered on to the platform at dawn on Tuesday that severe weather forecast for early this morning would cut short their occupation.

Greenpeace has warned that if Cairn strikes oil or gas, it will provoke an "oil rush" in the vulnerable and unspoilt waters of the Arctic as the world's largest oil firms exploit one of the world's largest untapped reserves.

Cairn Energy said drilling had resumed as soon as the four were arrested. Industry experts had denied the campaigners' claims that a delay of four or five days would have seriously damaged the drilling operation; the company had built delays and unscheduled stoppages into its schedule.

The four are now expected to be prosecuted by Greenlandic police, but Greenpeace said said it would now widen its campaign against deep sea drilling by taking the British government to court.

The group has sent the government a "letter before action", accusing ministers of issuing new licenses for deep sea drilling in British waters before they had found out exactly what caused the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

John Sauven, Greenpeace UK's executive director, said: "Our climbers have stopped this rig from drilling in the fragile Arctic for two days, and this is just the start of a long campaign. The world needs to go beyond oil, but here in the UK the government is waving through applications for new drilling as if the Deepwater Horizon explosion never happened.

"The Gulf of Mexico disaster was a game changer, so ministers should suspend new deep water licences and companies like Cairn Energy must stop dangerous drilling in the Arctic and start investing in clean alternatives instead."

• Greenpeace
• Greenland
• Activism
• Oil
• Commodities
• Scotland
• Fossil fuels
• Energy

Severin Carrell
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Bjørn Lomborg's change of mind on climate change is welcome, and some of his suggestions good, but your glowing review of his new book failed to examine deeply his shift in position (Top climate sceptic calls for $100bn fund to fight warming, 31 August).

Dr Lomborg last year began to call for an investment of $100bn per year on research and development for low-carbon technologies, instead of the $25bn he was advocating 18 months ago. He now proposes that this should be raised through a carbon tax of $7 per tonne of carbon dioxide, rather than the $2 per tonne for which he previously argued.

However, his strategy is alarmingly risky – invest heavily in R&D and hope that this alone will keep atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases low enough to avoid the risk of serious and damaging impacts from climate change. This might work, but it might not.

A more robust approach to managing the risks of climate change would be not only to invest in R&D, but also to use a carbon tax (or cap-and-trade) to discourage greenhouse gas emissions in the short run. The latter, not raising revenue, would be the primary purpose of introducing a carbon price. But to encourage enough emissions cuts in the next few years to keep greenhouse gases at low enough atmospheric concentrations, a carbon price considerably higher than Dr Lomborg's $7 per tonne is required.

We welcome the fact that Dr Lomborg has implicitly acknowledged that his previous arguments about climate change were flawed, but it would be wise to remain wary of his pronouncements, no matter how much publicity they attract.

Dr Alex Bowen, Dr Simon Dietz, Dimitri Zenghelis and Bob Ward

Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE

• What might be of equal surprise to Bjørn Lomborg's "U-turn" is that there are practical solutions available to raise the money that is needed without dipping into cash-strapped treasuries. A Robin Hood Tax on banks, levies on shipping and aviation emissions, money raised from the auctioning of emissions allowances from emissions trading schemes and redirecting fossil fuel subsidies are all realistic options.

Environment ministers from around the world meeting in Switzerland today must consider these options if the world is to move closer to a financial solution in tackling climate change and protecting poor people who are already vulnerable. Meanwhile, the shipping industry, which has faced no restrictions to its emissions so far, must begin to play its part by agreeing to a shipping levy when the International Maritime Organisation meets in London on 27 September.

Phil Bloomer

Campaigns and policy director, Oxfam

• I note with interest that Bjørn Lomborg has changed his mind on global warming. I also note that he has a book to sell.

Rod Shone

Walkern, Hertfordshire

• Climate change
• Climate change scepticism
• Carbon emissions
• Climate change

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Planet Ark (Reuters): Climate change could reduce key harvests in China by a fifth if the gloomiest scenarios prove true, according to a study on Wednesday.

Asia One/AFP: Ministers from nearly four dozen countries meet in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, bidding for progress on climate finance, an issue that has bedevilled the quest to roll back global warming.

Planet Ark (Reuters): The U.N. panel of climate scientists will look at the costs of "second best" ways of fighting global warming amid doubts that all countries will sign up to U.N.-led action, a leading expert said on Tuesday.

There has been a recent surge in articles from fossil-fuel friendly sources pointing to the inequity of tax credits and government subsidies being directed to the renewable energy sector. 

The latest is by Alan Caruba writing on the industry-backed CFACT website bemoaning a $7 million investment in a wind project in New Jersey. 

What Caruba and others fail to mention in their argument is that the fossil fuel industry - the main competitor to the renewable energy sector - receives more than ten times as much in government subsidies globally.

A recent report by Bloomberg New Finance finds that worldwide, the fossil fuel industry - which is made up mainly of oil, gas and coal companies - receives $557 billion a year in government subsidies while the renewable energy sector receives around $45 billion, or over ten times less support.

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In the United States, government spends two-times more money on subsidies to the fossil fuel sector, with $72.5 billion going to dirty fuels and $29 billion to clean technology. And half of that $29 billion goes into subsidies for corn-based ethanol and not wind, solar and geothermal technology.

Not mentioning the ridiculousness of subsidizing companies like ExxonMobil, one of the most profitable companies in the history of the world, this uneven playing ground in the energy sector between fossil fuels and clean energy is what allows people like Caruba to make his false arguments.

 

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