- Hezbollah strikes Israel, says it foiled Israeli incursions
- Jurgen Klopp to return as head of Red Bull football operations
- Sinner to face Medvedev in Shanghai Masters quarter-finals
- US weighs Google breakup in landmark trial
- Record-breaking Root guides England to 232-2 in reply to Pakistan's 556
- Japan PM dissolves parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- Chinese stocks tumble on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- 7-Eleven owner confirms new takeover offer from Couche-Tard
- Goodbye Tito? Tomb at risk as Serbs argue over Yugoslav legacy
- Restoration experts piece together silent Sherlock Holmes mystery
- Sinner avoids Shanghai deja vu with assured Shelton win
- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
Biden administration approves Alaska oil drilling project
The Biden administration, brushing aside pressure from environmentalists, on Monday approved a controversial oil drilling project on Alaska's North Slope.
The Interior Department gave the green light to US energy giant ConocoPhillips to drill for oil at three sites in the federally owned National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska's pristine western Arctic.
During the 2020 presidential race, Joe Biden had vowed not to approve any new leases for oil and gas projects on federal lands and his administration had been under intense pressure by environmental groups in recent days not to approve the so-called Willow Project.
Alaska lawmakers and other backers of the project had lobbied strongly for its approval, defending it as a source of several thousand jobs and a contributor to US energy independence, with production of 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak, or some 576 million barrels over 30 years.
Environmental groups expressed disappointment at the Interior Department move.
"We are too late in the climate crisis to approve massive oil and gas projects that directly undermine the new clean economy that the Biden administration committed to advancing," said Earthjustice president Abigail Dillen.
"We know President Biden understands the existential threat of climate, but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goals."
Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, said, "The harmful effects of President Biden's decision cannot be overstated.
"Willow will be one of the largest oil and gas operations on federal public lands in the country, and the carbon pollution it will spew into the air will have devastating effects for our communities, wildlife, and the climate," Jealous said.
"We will suffer the consequences of this for decades to come."
The Trump administration approved the Willow Project at the tail end of the former president's term, but it was blocked by a judge for further review.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), in an environmental impact analysis in February, approved three drilling sites, while striking down one and deferring consideration of another.
- 'Carbon bomb' -
Biden has described global warming as an existential threat and promoted the development of renewable energy sources.
Temperatures in Alaska have been rising faster than in other regions of the planet and environmental groups have warned that the oil extraction project would make things worse.
The Willow Project will add more than 250 million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere over the next 30 years, the Sierra Club said, equivalent to the annual emissions of 66 coal plants.
Greenpeace has described it as a "carbon bomb."
A petition on Change.org seeking to halt the project garnered more than three million signatures and a #StopWillow campaign on TikTok drew tens of millions of views.
Alaska's two Republican senators and the state's sole member of the House, Mary Peltola, a native Alaskan and a Democrat, met with Biden earlier this month to urge him to approve the project.
Peltola, in an opinion piece published in The Hill, said Alaskans "aren't blind to the impacts of climate change" but the Willow Project can serve as a bridge, as the country transitions away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources.
"At the same time, we can reduce America's dependence on foreign sources of oil -- which makes us all safer in a world that has grown more unpredictable after Russia invaded Ukraine," Peltola said.
Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005, with the goal of achieving a net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.
F.Schneider--AMWN