G20 summit in Argentina clashes over climate, fracking continues backstage


By Observatorio Petrolero Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina. – The G20 summit in Buenos Aires concludes Argentina’s G20 presidency. One of the year’s key themes and controversies has been climate change and the role of fossil fuels. In June the G20 energy ministers signed a communiqué highlighting the role of natural gas in “supporting transitions to lower emission energy systems”.

International Big Oil companies Chevron, Shell, BP, Wintershall, and Total are all pushing to drill Argentina’s huge shale gas formation, Vaca Muerta. And the Argentinian government has offered unprecedented subsidies for unconventional fossil gas drilling – mostly to support the Vaca Muerta shale megaproject. In a year of economic volatility, Vaca Muerta has been the Mauricio Macri government’s only success and hope. At the same time drilling for shale gas and oil in Vaca Muerta is bad for our environment, our economy, and the climate.



The hypocrisy is remarkable: while the government claims to support a necessary transition towards clean and sustainable energy sources, they focus Argentina’s energy and economic expectations on the development of Vaca Muerta, a carbon bomb.

At EJES and OPSur we deeply question this mega-project of fossil energy. Here we share some materials about it made in recent years.

Press releases:
The UN report confirms our position: Fracking needs to come to an end (october 2018)

Reports:

European companies to the conquest of Vaca Muerta (2018)

Vaca Muerta Megaproject – A fracking carbon bomb in Patagonia (2018)

Economic report: Winners and losers in Argentina unconventional fossil fuels (2017)

BP’s Fracking Secrets: Pan-American Energy and Argentina’s shale mega-project (2017)

Extreme. The New Frontiers of Energy Extractivism in Latin America (2017)

Heading South: The dash for unconventional fossil fuels in Argentina (2014)

Protest against fracking, Mendoza province. Credit: Martín Alvarez Mulally
Protest against fracking, Mendoza province. Credit: Martín Alvarez Mulally

 

Videos:

The G20 and Vaca Muerta

Micro-documentary series Territorio Crudo (subtitles in English and French).

 

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