A systematic quality assessment of Environmental Impact Statements in the oil and gas industry

The global economy relies heavily on oil and gas resources. However, hydrocarbon exploitation projects can cause significant impacts on the environment. But despite the production of numerous Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) to identify/mitigate such impacts, no study has specifically assessed the quality of EISs for both onshore and offshore oil and gas projects, with tested hypotheses. To address this research gap, our paper, for the first time, develops a modified Lee and Colley evaluation model to assess the quality of 19 sampled oil and gas project EISs produced from 1998 to 2008 in Nigeria. Our findings show that Project Description and Communication of Results are the main areas of strength. However, Environmental Impact Prediction, and Project Decommissioning, were among the key areas requiring attention. A key finding, though, is that Mann-Whitney tests suggest that there is no evidence that the quality of EISs for the latter period (2004–2008) is higher than that of the earlier period (1998–2004). We suggest that periodic systematic review of the quality of submitted/approved EISs (c. every 3–5 years) should be established to monitor trends in EIS quality and identify strong and weak areas. This would help to drive continual improvement in both the EIA processes and the resultant EISs of technical engineering projects. Such reviews have the potential to illuminate some of the underlying problems of, and solutions to, oil and gas exploration, production and transportation, and their related environmental impacts. This suggested change would also be useful internationally, including for the burgeoning exploration and production of unconventional hydrocarbon resources.Publisher Statement: NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of The Total Environment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of The Total Environment, [572, (2016)] DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.07.083© 2016, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Seeking Synergy Solutions: Policies that Support Both Climate and SDG Action

Four reports are being launched on 11 June by experts convened by the UN, showing how action to tackle climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals can be accelerated by addressing both crises together, notably in the key areas of policy frameworks; financial systems; knowledge and data; and cities.Under the umbrella title Seeking Synergy Solutions, the four thematic reports, spearheaded by the Expert Group on Climate and SDG Synergy, are being launched at a special event at the climate meetings in Bonn, Germany, laying the groundwork for the 2024 global synthesis report on climate and SDG synergy, to be released in July. The Expert Group is co-convened by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and UN Climate Change (UNFCCC), which co-hosted the launch, joined by the secretariats of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).The recommendations come at a crucial time. As pointed out in the report on Policies that Support Both Climate and SDG Action, both the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development underwent stocktaking exercises in 2023 and were found to be far off track from meeting their goals. In 2025, countries are obligated under the Paris Agreement to put forward new and ambitious commitments in the form of enhanced NDCs (nationally determined contributions), and the report urges them to use this major opportunity to better integrate the SDGs and their national priorities, to accelerate impact. (cited from UN webpage

Synergy Solutions for Climate and SDG Action: Bridging the Ambition Gap for the Future We Want I REPORT ON STRENGTHENING THE EVIDENCE BASE I SECOND EDITION 2024

A report issued by the UN-convened Expert Group on Climate and SDG Synergy presents a number of recommendations urging governments to break down fragmentation and silos at national and international levels, to tackle the climate and sustainable development crises in tandem and achieve transformative change. The report is being launched before government delegates at a special event of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development on 16 July at UN Headquarters in New York."It is no longer feasible to treat climate change and sustainable development separately," the experts state in the report, "with over 80 percent of SDG targets directly linked to climate. But there is a way, by tackling these two critical agendas together, that we can multiply impacts and bridge investment gaps worth trillions of dollars."Pointing to the setbacks on achieving both international climate and SDG goals, Under-Secretary-General Li Junhua of UN DESA and Executive Secretary Simon Stiell of UNFCCC, which co-convene the expert group, state in their preface that "deep transformative changes are needed to overcome the lack of progress." The report shows that "we have the solutions to make this possible," they state, and that "synergistic action must be at the heart of this transformation." (cited from UN webpage