Speaker 1: Welcome to a new year of Drilled and our sister
Speaker 1: show Damages. I'm Amy Westervelt. Next month we'll be bringing
Speaker 1: you a new narrative season across both shows that is
Speaker 1: all about the new wave of oil colonialism underway in
Speaker 1: the global South. Fossil fuel companies can see the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall, and they are raising each other to
Speaker 1: tap all of their reserves. No one wants to be
Speaker 1: the one left standing with the most unsold barrels of oil.
Speaker 1: So we're seeing this explosion of development across Africa, the
Speaker 1: Caribbean and Latin America. A lot of these projects fall
Speaker 1: into what reporters for The Guardian described as carbon bombs
Speaker 1: last year. I don't know if you're remember reading that
Speaker 1: story about how all these companies had committed to emissions
Speaker 1: reductions but also had plans on the books for these
Speaker 1: major fossil fuel developments. Here we are, the carbon bombs
Speaker 1: are being built, and there are some efforts underway to
Speaker 1: diffuse them. We're going to tell that story through a
Speaker 1: deep dive into what's been happening in one small South
Speaker 1: American country that's gone from being the world's top eco
Speaker 1: tourism destination to one of its largest oil producing states
Speaker 1: in just a few years. That country is Guyana. It's
Speaker 1: the only English speaking country in South America. It has
Speaker 1: a population of just under eight hundred thousand people, and
Speaker 1: today it is the fastest growing economy on Earth. That's
Speaker 1: thanks to a major oil boom led by Exxon Mobile.
Speaker 1: This is a fascinating story with a lot of twists
Speaker 1: and turns. Today as a special preview of what's to come,
Speaker 1: bringing you an interview with attorney Melinda Jankie. She's filed
Speaker 1: six different lawsuits over the last few years in an
Speaker 1: effort to curb oil development in her home country. As
Speaker 1: you'll hear, Jankie grew up in Guyana, but went to
Speaker 1: university in England and actually worked as in house counsel
Speaker 1: for BP before moving home and getting into environmental law.
Speaker 1: Many years before filing her recent cases, Jankie helped to
Speaker 1: write the country's constitutional right to a healthy environment, as
Speaker 1: well as some of the bedrock environmental policies in Guyana.
Speaker 1: Here she walks us through what's been happening since Exon
Speaker 1: first discovered oil in twenty fifteen. You'll hear our senior
Speaker 1: producer and editor Sarah Entry in this interview too. We
Speaker 1: are very excited to bring you the full story next month.
Speaker 1: Make sure you're subscribed so you won't miss it. I
Speaker 1: would love to have you tell me about where in
Speaker 1: the country you grew up and what you remember Guyana
Speaker 1: being like when you were a child growing up.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Sabrianville, which is very close to
Speaker 2: the sea, and so every night for the first few
Speaker 2: years of my life, I went to bed with the
Speaker 2: sound of the sea in my ears, and Sabrianville was
Speaker 2: very quiet. We lived with our neighbors basically, so all
Speaker 2: the children were in all the houses all of the time.
Speaker 2: And I would say I was obviously brought up by
Speaker 2: my mother and father, but I was also brought up
Speaker 2: by all the other parents in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's so nice, okay, And how did you wind
Speaker 1: up working for BP?
Speaker 2: So I basically became a lawyer. I didn't actually want
Speaker 2: to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a vet,
Speaker 2: but I didn't think I was clever enough to be
Speaker 2: a vet. So I thought, well, I'll do law instead,
Speaker 2: and discovered that I liked it, and I went to
Speaker 2: work for what they call one of the Magic Circle firms.
Speaker 2: In London at the time it was called Levels, and
Speaker 2: enjoyed it very much, but I thought that there ought
Speaker 2: to be a bit more to this, and so I
Speaker 2: left and then went to work in industry. And at
Speaker 2: the time it seemed like BVP was a good place
Speaker 2: to go, and indeed it was. The work was very interesting.
Speaker 2: I had far more responsibility than I would have had
Speaker 2: if i'd stayed in the law firm. I met some
Speaker 2: very interesting people, and I traveled, and you know, when
Speaker 2: you're young, the idea of seeing the world is very attractive.
Speaker 2: You want to go to other places, you want to
Speaker 2: meet other people, you want to experience other cultures, and
Speaker 2: you just want to learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And what was it like there? What kinds
Speaker 1: of things did you work on to the extent that
Speaker 1: you're able to say.
Speaker 2: Some of the work that I did towards the end
Speaker 2: of when I was there was on refinancing, so on
Speaker 2: bonds and swaps, and that involved me going to a
Speaker 2: lot of capital cities in Europe, which I enjoyed enormously
Speaker 2: because that's where we were doing the closings.
Speaker 1: And what did you learn about sort of how the
Speaker 1: oil industry operates seeing it from the inside.
Speaker 2: I think we just take these things for granted when
Speaker 2: you work in the industry. But of course, the purpose
Speaker 2: of an oil company is to make money. They have
Speaker 2: no other purpose. And I think sometimes people don't realize
Speaker 2: that the purpose of the oil company is to make
Speaker 2: money and they have no other purpose. They're not there
Speaker 2: to promote human rights, they're not there to protect the environment.
Speaker 2: They're there to put the share price up and to
Speaker 2: give big fat dividends to their shareholders. The other thing
Speaker 2: I think I learned was that they're very efficient, very
Speaker 2: very effect at what they do. They're very good at
Speaker 2: what they do, and they're very good at telling people
Speaker 2: a story about how beneficial this is for the world.
Speaker 2: So the oil industry always tells you how good it
Speaker 2: is for you to have them, how your life is
Speaker 2: much better because they're there, And that has the way
Speaker 2: of removing every other narrative. So we have a situation where,
Speaker 2: for example, they say, well, we power the world, we
Speaker 2: are the energy that keeps the economy going, we heat
Speaker 2: your homes, were enable you to cook, and people say, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: that's wonderful. They don't say we're frying the planet so
Speaker 2: that we can make money, and we are going to
Speaker 2: make sure that renewable energy doesn't get anywhere, because that
Speaker 2: will put us out of business. So in a way,
Speaker 2: I think you sort of understand that oil companies capture
Speaker 2: the public mind. I think they capture the political sector
Speaker 2: of society, because I don't think that the fossil fuel
Speaker 2: sector would survive if it wasn't for politicians who are
Speaker 2: prepared to prop them up, no matter the cost to
Speaker 2: the earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Okay, what prompted you to leave BP?
Speaker 2: I don't think that there is any one thing that
Speaker 2: prompted me to leave BP. I suppose the question I
Speaker 2: often ask myself is why am I still doing this?
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, if you keep doing something
Speaker 2: and you get good at it, and then you become
Speaker 2: very comfortable, and comfort is a kind of trap, it
Speaker 2: makes it more difficult to leave and to grow and
Speaker 2: to do different things. But really, also, I was in
Speaker 2: a meeting and it was a meeting about swaps, and
Speaker 2: one of the people at the table turned to me
Speaker 2: and he said, as we were discussing swap, he said, oh,
Speaker 2: this is such sexy work. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: you know, this is really time to leave.
Speaker 1: Okay, And what did you do next? What happened at
Speaker 1: that point? When you left?
Speaker 2: I left and I had an offer to join a
Speaker 2: firm in Guyana, and I decided that this would be
Speaker 2: a good time to take up that offer if it
Speaker 2: was still available, and I became a partner in the firm.
Speaker 2: So when I came back, I had something to go to,
Speaker 2: which was extremely fortunate.
Speaker 1: And what kinds of things did you work on there?
Speaker 2: I worked on generally commercial stuff, because really all my
Speaker 2: training and everything that I'd been doing was commercial work,
Speaker 2: hard nosed commercial work.
Speaker 1: And how did you get involved with right legislation?
Speaker 2: So that started in nineteen ninety four or ninety five
Speaker 2: when there was a meeting at the Pegasus Hotel, which
Speaker 2: is this big was this big hotel in Man, it's
Speaker 2: even bringher now. I wanted to go to the meeting,
Speaker 2: but I had no way to go to the meeting
Speaker 2: because I was just this completely unimportant individual and the
Speaker 2: meeting was by invitation only, and then there were some
Speaker 2: press passes. And the other partner in the firm was
Speaker 2: someone called David Decareys, who was the owner and publisher
Speaker 2: and editor of Stabreick News. And I said to him
Speaker 2: that I wanted to go to the meeting, and he said,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a press pass. So I went and
Speaker 2: it was interminably boring, but in the break I was
Speaker 2: able to talk to one of the government officials and
Speaker 2: say to him that I had looked at their draft
Speaker 2: Environmental Act and I thought that it was inadequate. And
Speaker 2: he didn't brush me off. He said, oh, well, send
Speaker 2: me something about it. I mean, I suppose that was
Speaker 2: the brush off, but I didn't think it was a
Speaker 2: brush off. I thought that it was actually really a
Speaker 2: really exciting opportunity. So I wrote a paper explaining why
Speaker 2: I thought this Act was inadequate. The next thing I
Speaker 2: knew was they asked me if i'd like to actually
Speaker 2: work on this as a consultant, and so I said yes,
Speaker 2: and I was hired. I think the IDB paid for
Speaker 2: it because they had a team working on it at
Speaker 2: the time, and so that's how I became involved in
Speaker 2: drafting the legislation. And I worked with the rest of
Speaker 2: the IDB people, none of whom were lawyers, and the
Speaker 2: result was this completely completely changed piece of legislation. I
Speaker 2: put in all the stuff on the environmental impact assessment.
Speaker 2: I put in the impact on the climate the impact
Speaker 2: on the atmosphere. And this is nineteen ninety five, ninety six,
Speaker 2: This is at a time and nobody really was thinking
Speaker 2: about those things. And I put in principles of environmental management,
Speaker 2: so things like the pollutera pays that you have to
Speaker 2: take action to the precautionary principle. And I put in
Speaker 2: principles of natural capital, which again people really weren't talking
Speaker 2: about and even now seems to be unknown again even
Speaker 2: though it's been in the legislation since nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: How did you get interested in this stuff? Like you were,
Speaker 1: you know, a commercial lawyer, worked in industry. How did
Speaker 1: you start to learn about environmental legislation and or was
Speaker 1: this like something you'd always been interested in and just
Speaker 1: hadn't been able to work in.
Speaker 2: Well, I think when you grew up with nature, then
Speaker 2: you have a relationship with the world around you, and
Speaker 2: then if you're a lawyer, you sort of at some
Speaker 2: point I suppose that to connect. And I wanted to
Speaker 2: protect Guyana's environment. I wanted to protect the nature that
Speaker 2: I grew up with and that I think everybody should
Speaker 2: have a chance to grow up with.
Speaker 1: How did the constitutional rate to a healthy environment come
Speaker 1: about well.
Speaker 2: This was just another one of those opportunities. The government
Speaker 2: decided that they would look at the constitution and that
Speaker 2: they would begin a process of constitution reform, and they
Speaker 2: set up different committees and subcommittees and it was all
Speaker 2: terribly exciting. I wasn't on any of the committees, but
Speaker 2: I was interested in the constitution bit of it, and
Speaker 2: I decided that I would write something and send it
Speaker 2: to them as a sort of background paper that would
Speaker 2: add to the discussion. So I looked at constitutions around
Speaker 2: the world that at that time had the right to
Speaker 2: healthy environment, and then I put forward the arguments for
Speaker 2: having it in the Constitution and I sent it to
Speaker 2: the committee. I happened I didn't know two of the
Speaker 2: people on the committee, so I think that helped to
Speaker 2: get people to read it, and they decided that it
Speaker 2: was worth paying attention to, and they said to me
Speaker 2: that they would use it and that they would recommend
Speaker 2: that the right to a healthy environment went into the Constitution.
Speaker 2: And actually what they did was to adopt entirely the
Speaker 2: provisions from South Africa, which I think was a good
Speaker 2: move to do at the time.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, Exxon finds Oil and Melinda
Speaker 1: starts filing cases. Stay with us. Talk me through the
Speaker 1: path from working at this firm. You're getting involved in
Speaker 1: some of the legislation. How do you then start filing
Speaker 1: cases around environmental issues.
Speaker 2: Well, I had left the firm to become a consultant
Speaker 2: and that gave me a lot more freedom to do things.
Speaker 2: And then I actually I went away and then came
Speaker 2: back again. And at the time, nothing much was happening
Speaker 2: until suddenly in twenty fifteen, ex All announced that they
Speaker 2: had found oil, and my heart just sank because I
Speaker 2: know oil is a disaster and it's the worst possible
Speaker 2: thing that could have happened to Geana. And people just
Speaker 2: began to go crazy at the idea of all this
Speaker 2: oil wealth. They were talking exclusively in terms of oil wealth.
Speaker 2: But I thought that we were really heading for trouble.
Speaker 2: And sure enough, the first thing that we saw was
Speaker 2: that they changed. They entered into a new agreement which
Speaker 2: was secret. They wouldn't release it to people. When they
Speaker 2: finally released it, it was atrocious. The previous government had
Speaker 2: signed an agreement that was very much in favor of Exon.
Speaker 2: The next government which came in took that agreement and
Speaker 2: made it even more favorable to the oil companies, so
Speaker 2: you can see why the government wanted to keep it secret.
Speaker 2: They had also taken eighteen million dollars which they hid
Speaker 2: in a secret bank account instead of putting it into
Speaker 2: the consolidated fund, so right from the beginning this was problematic.
Speaker 2: Then they ESSO, which is the low subsidiary. You see,
Speaker 2: this dealer is not with Exon Mobile Corporation, the big
Speaker 2: company that has billions of dollars worth of assets, albeit
Speaker 2: assets that may well be stranded assets, but nevertheless assets.
Speaker 2: This subsidiary is registered in the Bahamas and doesn't have
Speaker 2: anything anything like the assets that Exon Mobile Corporation has,
Speaker 2: So you're dealing with somebody who is thin on the ground.
Speaker 2: SOSO started to do this environmental impact assessment. It was
Speaker 2: absolutely atrocious. It was done by erm who have Exon
Speaker 2: Mobile as their clients. Anyway, you are supposed to have
Speaker 2: the environmental impact assessment done by an independent consultant. Now
Speaker 2: independent obviously means independent of the person for whom you're
Speaker 2: doing it. That rule was breached from day one. But
Speaker 2: people were so excited about this oil that no one
Speaker 2: was focusing on this, and the environmental Impact Assessment has
Speaker 2: things like ESSO will be allowed to put four thousand
Speaker 2: barrels of sewage into the sea every day. They carried
Speaker 2: out studies of birds using bird lists that are very
Speaker 2: old from the nineteen sixties. They went out into the
Speaker 2: sea and they looked at the fish, and they came
Speaker 2: back and they said the most common fish was the
Speaker 2: unidentified flying fish. And the regulator, the Environmental Protection Agency,
Speaker 2: raised no objections to any of the stuff that they
Speaker 2: had put into the Environmental Impact Assessment and issued a
Speaker 2: permit on the first of June twenty seventeen, in which
Speaker 2: they said that ESSO was authorized to carry out the
Speaker 2: laza I project in accordance with the Environmental Impact Assessment
Speaker 2: also dated the of June twenty seventeen, and the Environmental
Speaker 2: Management Assessment dated the first of June twenty seventeen, and
Speaker 2: various other documents dated the first of twenty seventeen. These
Speaker 2: documents run to fifteen hundred pages or more. So it
Speaker 2: is a mystery as to when exactly the Environmental Protection
Speaker 2: Agency read these documents, if in fact they did read.
Speaker 1: Them, Wow, what was the first case you failed?
Speaker 2: So this is happening in twenty seventeen and it's becoming
Speaker 2: increasingly obvious that the sector is going to do whatever
Speaker 2: it wants to do. So at this event, the advisor
Speaker 2: to the President on oil was telling people that they
Speaker 2: didn't really know the oil industry and they had to
Speaker 2: trust the oil companies. I was utterly outraged by that,
Speaker 2: particularly as it was coming from someone who was very
Speaker 2: close to the president. And I began talking to someone
Speaker 2: there and he said he would like to do a case,
Speaker 2: but nobody would do the case for him to challenge
Speaker 2: the oil and I said, I'll do it now. I
Speaker 2: had not done litigation for a very long time, and
Speaker 2: I thought I'll get someone else to help with this,
Speaker 2: but in fact I couldn't get anybody to help with
Speaker 2: it until a senior council who was based in Trinidad
Speaker 2: agreed to take the case and to do it with me.
Speaker 2: And the case was completely unfunded. We had a little
Speaker 2: crowd justice thing, a little crowd justice page, and some
Speaker 2: of the Guyanese diaspora gave us one thousand dollars and
Speaker 2: that's how we started. I had no clerk. I had
Speaker 2: to go and line up at the Court Registry with
Speaker 2: the documents and wait. My turn, and everybody would push
Speaker 2: in front of me because they know how the system
Speaker 2: works and I don't. And eventually I got the documents
Speaker 2: stamped and filed, and then so on the other side.
Speaker 2: And then the case began.
Speaker 1: And what case was that?
Speaker 2: The case is Raymond Gaskin against the Minister of Natural
Speaker 2: Resources in the environment and then the judge added, so
Speaker 2: exploration production gay and limited, Hess gan A limited and
Speaker 2: se next in petroleum gayanulimited. So the three oil companies
Speaker 2: that are part of the petroleum agreement that was redone.
Speaker 2: And the case is very simple. So so has an
Speaker 2: environmental permit, the same permit that I mentioned that was awarded,
Speaker 2: but Hess and s don't. However, the minister who was
Speaker 2: the respondent in the case, the minister gave a petroleum
Speaker 2: production license to all three of the oil companies. Our
Speaker 2: argument is that you can't do that. You can only
Speaker 2: give a petroleum production license to someone who has already
Speaker 2: met the requirements of the Environmental Protection Act and has
Speaker 2: obtained an environmental permit. And we say that's exactly what
Speaker 2: the Act says. Now its opposing counsel has stood up
Speaker 2: in court and given a different interpretation of the legislation,
Speaker 2: and I can say it's a little frustrating for me
Speaker 2: because I wrote those sections and I know exactly what
Speaker 2: they mean, but you can't really say that in court. However,
Speaker 2: the case went to the Chief Justice and we waited
Speaker 2: a year for a decision. She ruled against mister Gaskin.
Speaker 2: We appealed the case within two days. It was heard
Speaker 2: earlier this year, and we are now waiting for the
Speaker 2: Court of Appeal to give their decision. Under the Time
Speaker 2: Limit for Judicial Decisions Act, the Court of Appeal is
Speaker 2: required to give their decision within thirty days. That thirty
Speaker 2: days expired some time ago, and we have written to
Speaker 2: the court asking them for their decision, king them to
Speaker 2: give their decision.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through the constitutional case, the case
Speaker 1: that invokes Guyana's constitutional right for a healthy environment? How
Speaker 1: did that begin?
Speaker 2: Definitely? So, as oil production, as zoil activities in the
Speaker 2: country continue, it's becoming increasingly apparent to people that deepwater
Speaker 2: drilling is extremely dangerous, but also that the result of
Speaker 2: this activity is killing the planet. And so I was
Speaker 2: talking to d De Troy Thomas from the University. Now.
Speaker 2: Dr Thomas had at that stage already filed a case
Speaker 2: against es SO, and I was his lawyer on that
Speaker 2: case along with Sinasjirahm, who had also been the senior
Speaker 2: council in the Gaskin case, and that in that case
Speaker 2: we cut SOS permits down from over twenty three years
Speaker 2: to five years. So Dr Thomas had already been in
Speaker 2: court once on this and decided that he would like
Speaker 2: now to continue and do something else because fossil fuel
Speaker 2: production and greenhouse gases are killing the future basically, so
Speaker 2: he decided that he wanted to do the case. I
Speaker 2: said that I would do it, and Cordad Defratus, who
Speaker 2: is a young Wapachan youth from the South Roupernuni, said
Speaker 2: that he also would like to be in the case.
Speaker 2: So we have those two litigants. In essence, the case
Speaker 2: is very simple, and it says that when you burn
Speaker 2: fossil fuels, they emit greenhouse gases, and those greenhouse gases
Speaker 2: cause global warming, which results in the breakdown of the
Speaker 2: climate system, extreme weather, rising sea levels, melting polar gaps,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. We we've just put all of
Speaker 2: that under the umbrella of climate change. But the case
Speaker 2: very specifically talks about greenhouse gas pollution. We treat climate
Speaker 2: change as a symptom of the problem, not as the problem.
Speaker 2: The second part of the case is the other bit
Speaker 2: where the greenhouse gas pollution goes, and that's the ocean.
Speaker 2: And we say that it's making the greenhouse gas pollution
Speaker 2: is making the ocean acid, and that the ocean is
Speaker 2: already understress because it's becoming warmer as a result of
Speaker 2: the increasing global temperatures, and that there are also definite
Speaker 2: trends of deoxygenation in the ocean, and that all of
Speaker 2: this is having a very bad impact on marine wildlife. So,
Speaker 2: in essence, the case has two prongs. One the impact
Speaker 2: on the atmosphere and then the results of all of that,
Speaker 2: and the impact on the ocean and the results of
Speaker 2: all of that.
Speaker 1: And then taken together, those things threaten the right to
Speaker 1: a healthy environment.
Speaker 2: Taken together, those things, in my view, and we argue
Speaker 2: this in the case, are a violation of the rights
Speaker 2: to a healthy environment. And therefore we're saying to the court,
Speaker 2: will you please make a declaration that when the government
Speaker 2: will the state authorized esso to extract oil, the state
Speaker 2: is violating the right to a healthy environment, and that
Speaker 2: right to a healthy environment includes the rights of present
Speaker 2: in future generations, And we point out that greenhouse gas
Speaker 2: pollution has an awful habit of sitting in the atmosphere
Speaker 2: and the impacts are felt for a very long time
Speaker 2: after you've stopped the emissions. So there is a burden
Speaker 2: on future generations, while the benefit, so called benefits, are
Speaker 2: apparently being experienced by the present generations in the sense
Speaker 2: that people say they're getting some money now and they're
Speaker 2: kicking the problem down to future generations. That's the violation
Speaker 2: of the Constitution.
Speaker 1: And where is that case now? What stage is it at?
Speaker 2: So the case was filed under a very simple procedure
Speaker 2: called the fixed state application, where there is no dispute
Speaker 2: on facts, and it was filed against the Attorney General
Speaker 2: as a representative of the state of Guyana. The judge
Speaker 2: then decided that he would add es as an added respondent.
Speaker 2: So the judge converted this statement of case and told
Speaker 2: es So and the Attorney General to just respond to
Speaker 2: the fixed state application as if it was a statement
Speaker 2: of claim and to ignore the affidavit in support they
Speaker 2: put in their defenses. Then we put in another affter.
Speaker 2: David responded to that the Attorney General has not, and
Speaker 2: then ESSO decided to find an application to strike out
Speaker 2: statements in Dr Thomas's AFFI David of Witness statement, according
Speaker 2: to ESSO, climate change is a matter of scientific opinion.
Speaker 2: Climate change is not fact. According to ESSO, ocean acidification
Speaker 2: is not fact. It's a matter of opinion. And throughout
Speaker 2: their application, throughout the Affidavid put in by ESO, they
Speaker 2: say that all of these things need to be proved
Speaker 2: by experts, and that Dr Thomas is not an expert
Speaker 2: and therefore cannot say that climate change exists, or that
Speaker 2: ocean acidification exists, or the extreme weather exists, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I didn't realize that they were that they
Speaker 1: were going there.
Speaker 2: So in addition, we have quoted extensively, of course, from
Speaker 2: esso's own documents, including the Greenhouse Gas review that came
Speaker 2: out I think round about nineteen eighty nine or sometime
Speaker 2: around then. They say this is hearsay and they want
Speaker 2: to take it out. Their own documents are hearsay. They
Speaker 2: say that their own document is hearsay and has to
Speaker 2: be taken out. We have also referred to Darren Woods's
Speaker 2: testimony on Oath to Congress last year in October twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, when he said that excellent Mobile has long
Speaker 2: known about climate change and they say that this also
Speaker 2: is hearsay and should be taken out.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, and I know you have six cases altogether.
Speaker 1: Now what are the other cases?
Speaker 2: So I've mentioned three so far, the Gaskin case, the
Speaker 2: permit's case with Dr Thomas, and the climate change case.
Speaker 2: December twenty nineteen, SO announced that they had begun production.
Speaker 2: They call it first oil, and at that moment the
Speaker 2: then president, President Granger, was so completely over excited that
Speaker 2: he wanted to declare that day a national holiday. So
Speaker 2: this is when they say that they began production. The
Speaker 2: environmental permit says that the associated gas, which is the
Speaker 2: gas that comes up with the oil, is to be
Speaker 2: used as fuel on board the FPS, so the floating
Speaker 2: production storage of floating vessel, and then any gas that's
Speaker 2: not used is to be reinjected. In January twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: fishermen reported seeing this vast fire in the sky, and
Speaker 2: it turned out that ESSO was in fact flaring the
Speaker 2: gas and not reinjecting it, but they had not said
Speaker 2: so to the Environmental Protection Agency. The Environmental Protection Agency.
Speaker 2: The EPA has no presence on board the fpso it's
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty miles offshore. The EPA has absolutely
Speaker 2: no idea what's going on there, and they rely entirely
Speaker 2: on ESSO for information. So they are all self reported.
Speaker 2: It's all self reported, and the regulator no attention to
Speaker 2: its statutory duties. Now, obviously, people again are not fools.
Speaker 2: They may think we're stupid, but we're not. People took
Speaker 2: great exception to ESO flaring and harming the environment, and
Speaker 2: if you look at the press for twenty twenty and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one and so on, there was great outrage
Speaker 2: in the country at this flaring. And then they were
Speaker 2: told that they had to cut back on production in
Speaker 2: order to reduce the flaring, and that was done by
Speaker 2: the then head of the EPA. So the head of
Speaker 2: the ep at this time was very different to the
Speaker 2: person who was the head of the EPA in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: and he took a much stricter line. This is Dr
Speaker 2: Vincent Adams, and he was very experienced in dealing with
Speaker 2: oil companies and he had worked at a very senior
Speaker 2: level in the United States. It turns out that the
Speaker 2: reason that ESO was flaring was that their gas compressor
Speaker 2: wasn't working. So the reason for flaring was defective equipment.
Speaker 2: This gas compressor went all the way to Germany and
Speaker 2: then it came back again and it's still wasn't working.
Speaker 2: So we decided that this needed to be taken a
Speaker 2: bit more seriously, and I was approached by three women
Speaker 2: who said that they wanted to do something about this flaring.
Speaker 2: One is a university lecturer, Seneca Henry, one is an
Speaker 2: environmental activist Selina Nagere, and one was a student at
Speaker 2: the University Andrisk Tarrington. And so the three of them
Speaker 2: decided to file this case basically saying that the Environmental
Speaker 2: Protection Agency acted wrongly because it changed the environmental permit
Speaker 2: to allow ESO to flare, and in returnes SO would
Speaker 2: pay to FLAREESO says that they were allowed to flare anyway,
Speaker 2: and the EPA said is that they are entitled to
Speaker 2: do this under the legislation. That's the case that's in
Speaker 2: front of the judge. The case was brought against the
Speaker 2: Environmental Protection Agency, but the judge added so again, so
Speaker 2: we are waiting for a decision on that case. Now
Speaker 2: earlier this year says permit expired and the EPA renewed it.
Speaker 2: As far as we can tell, they didn't inform anybody.
Speaker 2: SOO did not apply for the permit. If they did,
Speaker 2: the application is a secret and it is supposed to
Speaker 2: be publicly available, and there was no environmental impact assessment.
Speaker 2: So two women decided that they would challenge this. One
Speaker 2: is Seneca Henry, who is a litigant in the flaring case,
Speaker 2: and the other is Denuto rad Zig, who is a
Speaker 2: human rights activist. And they say that the Environmental Protection
Speaker 2: Agency acted on lawfully when it issued this new permit
Speaker 2: to so SO and didn't carry out an environmental impact assessment.
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier the flaring. I mentioned the faulty equipment.
Speaker 2: In fact, esso's local boss has sworn an affy David
Speaker 2: in court, saying that the reason that they are flaring
Speaker 2: is because of this failure of their mechanical equipment and
Speaker 2: that despite multiple repairs, it's still not working. Now, when
Speaker 2: you have equipment that is not working in oil production,
Speaker 2: that is a very serious situation. Then we hear that
Speaker 2: they are operating above the safety limits of the floating
Speaker 2: production storage of floating vessel. Dr Vincent Adams, who was
Speaker 2: the previous head of the EPA and was then removed
Speaker 2: when the new government came in, has been warning that
Speaker 2: this operation poses significant danger. These systems' failures can lead
Speaker 2: to a well blowout. Little things were what caused the
Speaker 2: Bpmcondo well blowout and the BP Macondo well blowut happened
Speaker 2: in the Gulf of Mexico. The United States of America
Speaker 2: has more experience, more resources, more expertise, more technology, more boats,
Speaker 2: more everything than anybody. And that happened in just in
Speaker 2: the Gulf of Mexico. And yet it was devastating.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then there's one more sixth case.
Speaker 2: So we have a very very difficult situation in Guyana.
Speaker 2: The cases are taking a long time to get through
Speaker 2: the court. I mentioned the Gaskin case one year to
Speaker 2: get a decision from the judge, another year while we
Speaker 2: wait for it to be heard by the Court of Appeal,
Speaker 2: the Flaring case where we're waiting for a decision, the
Speaker 2: Permit's case where we have to wait two months before
Speaker 2: the judge even has a hearing. In the mean time,
Speaker 2: Guyana is in grave danger. Now. Guyana has nothing. This
Speaker 2: country knows nothing about oil and even less about oil
Speaker 2: danger and oil spills. There's not a single person in
Speaker 2: this country that knows what to do if there is
Speaker 2: a problem. The risk to Guyana is incredible. This oil production.
Speaker 2: This is a reckless gamble by the government of Guyana
Speaker 2: with the future of Guyana. It's a reckless gamble by
Speaker 2: the government of Guyana for the entire Caribbean. The maps
Speaker 2: show that if there is a well blowout, that oil
Speaker 2: is going to end up in Caribbean countries. Caribbean sisters
Speaker 2: and brothers, and they depend on tourism for their economy.
Speaker 2: A lot of the Caribbean economy is based on tourism.
Speaker 2: They depend on the fishing. So you have a situation
Speaker 2: where Guyana's oil production could potentially destroy Caribbean economies. We
Speaker 2: are talking about billions of dollars worth of loss in
Speaker 2: addition to devastating the biodiversity of the region. And you
Speaker 2: can't put a price on that. It's all very well
Speaker 2: to say, well, we can compensate the tourism sector, but
Speaker 2: you can't walk into a shop and buy a new
Speaker 2: sperm whale. The wildlife that is in this part of
Speaker 2: the world is incredible. We have rare species and all
Speaker 2: of this is at risk because of this oil drilling
Speaker 2: has a permit. Now, if essays in breach of that permit,
Speaker 2: who's liable? Well, of course we would say that ESSO
Speaker 2: is liable. But I already told you this is an
Speaker 2: offshore company that doesn't have billions of dollars worth of assets.
Speaker 2: It's going to come back to Guyana because it's Guyana.
Speaker 2: Oh right, Caribbean countries want to sue someone. They're going
Speaker 2: to suit Guyana.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, and here's why.
Speaker 2: So doesn't have the billions of dollars that it could
Speaker 2: compensate people for. And what happens then, well, the Caribbean
Speaker 2: countries could come to Guyana and ask Guyana to pay compensation. Now,
Speaker 2: under international law, you can be liable for trans boundary harm.
Speaker 2: Ghana is not doing its due diligence. It's not ensuring
Speaker 2: that ESO adheres to the Environmental Protection Act. It's not
Speaker 2: ensuring that SOO is running its operations properly. Why on
Speaker 2: Earth would you allow somebody to continue producing oil when
Speaker 2: you know that their gas compressor is defective. What sort
Speaker 2: of government allows an oil company to operate above the
Speaker 2: safety limits? There have already been spills, so SO has
Speaker 2: been fined for those spills. Obviously, this is a dangerous operation,
Speaker 2: and obviously the government is not doing its due diligence
Speaker 2: and it's not enforcing the law, and therefore the government
Speaker 2: is at fault. And that means that Guyana could end
Speaker 2: up liable for billions of dollars if and I hope
Speaker 2: that this will never happen, if there's any kind of
Speaker 2: well blower or oil spill. The oil industry calls these
Speaker 2: things unplanned events, and they tend to use these horrible
Speaker 2: Weazley terms to pretend that actually they're not destroying the planet,
Speaker 2: but that is exactly what they're doing. And this graverust
Speaker 2: to Guyana financially. So the next case is a case
Speaker 2: where the plaintiffs are saying to the court there must
Speaker 2: be an unlimited parent company guarantee. There is a provision
Speaker 2: in the Environmental Permit for insurance and for something called
Speaker 2: financial assurance. Insurance obviously is bog standard industry insurance, and
Speaker 2: it will cover things that oil industry insurance usually covers.
Speaker 2: But there's something else, which is financial assurance, and the
Speaker 2: permit says that SO must provide a parent company indemnity
Speaker 2: for all of the liability that might be imposed on
Speaker 2: Guyana as a result of their activities in the stab
Speaker 2: Rick Block. The activities in the Stabric Block are the
Speaker 2: oil drilling and the oil production and the impacts of that.
Speaker 2: If there is a system's failure, those impacts could be
Speaker 2: very costly and it is for the oil companies to
Speaker 2: bear those costs. So basically, the case says Ghana is
Speaker 2: not going to have to pay that money, ESO have
Speaker 2: to pay that money, And because we know that you
Speaker 2: don't really have that money, we demand a parent company
Speaker 2: guarantee an indemnity, a legal undertaking that Exon Mobil Corporation
Speaker 2: is on the hook for whatever those costs are, and
Speaker 2: there is no limit to that liability, an unlimited indemnity
Speaker 2: from Exonomobile. And that's exactly what it means. It means
Speaker 2: that however much the damages Exonmobile Corporation has to pay,
Speaker 2: that we don't know what it could be. It could
Speaker 2: be a small amount of their value, or it could
Speaker 2: be a large amount of their value. Given that Bpmcondo
Speaker 2: roughly cost about seventy billion and the cleanup is still
Speaker 2: going on, Given that that was ten years ago, and
Speaker 2: given that there were no other countries involved, I think
Speaker 2: we can say that seventy something billion is the minimum.
Speaker 2: I think we can be sure that if there is
Speaker 2: a well blowout or a spill, then the costs will
Speaker 2: be far in excess of anything in the Macondo well blowout,
Speaker 2: over one hundred billion, maybe even higher. We simply don't know,
Speaker 2: but there is no way that Guyana is going to
Speaker 2: be on the hook for that. And that is what
Speaker 2: this case is about. It's saying you, Excell Mobile Corporation,
Speaker 2: are responsible for the damage done by your subsidiary. So
Speaker 2: the case has been filed. The papers were served the
Speaker 2: day before yesterday. Now the case was filed as urgent.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's urgent because every single day that they're out
Speaker 2: there drilling and they're using defective equipment, and they're operating
Speaker 2: above the FPSO levels and they're saying that there's a
Speaker 2: spill every single day is a risk that something terrible
Speaker 2: could happen. So we've said this case is urgent and
Speaker 2: we hope that we can get a hearing date as
Speaker 2: soon as possible. Analyticans in this case are Frederick Collins,
Speaker 2: who is an insurance professional now retired and a colleague
Speaker 2: of his, Godfrey White. All the cases are brought by
Speaker 2: citizens of Ghana. There is no civil society organization involved
Speaker 2: in any of the cases. And it's one of the
Speaker 2: interesting aspects of Guyana that the so called conservation organizations
Speaker 2: do not criticize Exon Mobil, do not criticize the oil.
Speaker 2: WWF has been saying it's possible to protect the ocean
Speaker 2: and drill for oil. I have no idea what planet
Speaker 2: that's possible on, but anyway, that's what they say. Conservation
Speaker 2: International took ten million US dollars from Exon Mobile. They
Speaker 2: say that they've given it back. The Gana Marine Conservation
Speaker 2: Society has four government agencies on its board and so
Speaker 2: on and so forth.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's interesting, because yeah, I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of the litigation of this kind in the US is
Speaker 1: being mostly funded by NGOs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In general, civil society in this country has not
Speaker 2: stood up against the oil in order to protect Guyana,
Speaker 2: and so it's come down to courageous individuals who are
Speaker 2: prepared to say no, I'm not putting up with this.
Speaker 2: It has also been very difficult to get lawyers in
Speaker 2: Guyana to work on these cases, but that is beginning
Speaker 2: to change.
Speaker 3: Why is it that it's been hard to get lawyers
Speaker 3: to work on those cases.
Speaker 2: Many lawyers are uninterested because they see the oil work
Speaker 2: as potentially extremely lucrative and they obviously would like to
Speaker 2: earn the money. Some think that this is just about
Speaker 2: the environment and the human rights and that we should
Speaker 2: be focused on the economy. And I think some are
Speaker 2: just afraid of standing up to the government and the
Speaker 2: oil sector.
Speaker 1: And what does that.
Speaker 3: Mean for the individuals or sundown is what against a
Speaker 3: case like this like the if lawyers are afraid to
Speaker 3: stand up to it and NGOs aren't standing up to it,
Speaker 3: and it's left to these individuals to put their names
Speaker 3: on these cases, like what kind of a risk is.
Speaker 1: It for them?
Speaker 2: Generally in Guyana, it's been individuals who have been standing
Speaker 2: up and saying no. So I think all of the
Speaker 2: litigants decide for themselves whether that is a risk that
Speaker 2: they want to take. And I would say that, you know,
Speaker 2: these are amazing people, and there are very few people
Speaker 2: in this country so far who have been prepared to say,
Speaker 2: you know what, I am going to stand up. I'm
Speaker 2: not just going to sit back and accept this. And
Speaker 2: what's really encouraging is that two of the litigants are
Speaker 2: at the University of Guyana as lecturers. One is a dean,
Speaker 2: Troy Thomas is a dean, one is a student at
Speaker 2: the University of Guyana. And yet oil money is going
Speaker 2: to the University of Guyana.
Speaker 1: I just watched a speech that the President gave it
Speaker 1: the Woodrow Wilson Center to this effect that Guyana is
Speaker 1: going to be an oil for just a short amount
Speaker 1: of time to get enough money to fund its low
Speaker 1: carbon development plan and green transition, and then it's going
Speaker 1: to get out. So, like, you know, don't worry, and
Speaker 1: I just would love to hear your response to that story.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's self serving bullshit and economic insanity.
Speaker 2: There is no way you can say that you're going
Speaker 2: to do oil for a short time. By definition, when
Speaker 2: you start doing oil, it's for the long haul. That's
Speaker 2: why ESSO has been given permits for twenty years. We
Speaker 2: know perfectly well that all across the globe now fossil
Speaker 2: fuel assets are rapidly becoming stranded assets. So that tells
Speaker 2: me that the government really has no grasp of the
Speaker 2: global energy market, has no grasp of the way the
Speaker 2: world is moving. Everybody is moving to renewable energy. The
Speaker 2: countries that are struggling to remove the renewable energy the
Speaker 2: ones that are locked into fossil fuels. And that's why
Speaker 2: the global North is now looking to shift all of
Speaker 2: those interests to African countries and places like Guyana. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a bit like the smoking. New outlawed smoking and
Speaker 2: then suddenly cheap cigarettes began to appear everywhere else. So
Speaker 2: ghan is an extremely rich country and for fifty five years,
Speaker 2: the political parties, the PNC and the PPP and then
Speaker 2: more recently they're sort of offshoot the AFC, have run
Speaker 2: this country into the ground. Where are Guyana's gold reserves?
Speaker 2: Where is the money from the gold? Where is the
Speaker 2: money from the box side, Where is the money from
Speaker 2: the diamonds, Where is the money from the sugar, Where
Speaker 2: is the money from the agriculture, Where is the money
Speaker 2: from the fishing, etc. The list is almost endless because
Speaker 2: we are so full of wealth and yet the people
Speaker 2: in this country are poor. We have people sleeping on
Speaker 2: the streets and eating out of the bins. Point in
Speaker 2: anybody saying oil is going to make Guyana rich. We
Speaker 2: have had year after year after year of resource curse,
Speaker 2: and now we have something that is infinitely worse, which
Speaker 2: is the oil curse. And there's not a single government
Speaker 2: official in this country that is prepared to do what
Speaker 2: is in the best interests of Ghanna.
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