Goal 13: Climate Action

What Is The Willow Oil Project?

The Biden Administration just approved this controversial oil deal. So what does that mean for our planet?

By Jessica Jurkschat
23 March 2023

On 13th March, the Biden Administration approved the Willow Oil Project, a controversial £6 billion drilling project in Northern Alaska.

It's one of the biggest new oil ventures to approved in the USA for decades.

The Willow Project will produce roughly 575 million barrels of oil, resulting in 278 million tons of CO2e release over its 30-year lifetime – that's like adding two million more cars to the roads in America.

*CO2e is a unit used to express the climate impact of all greenhouse gases together as if they were all emitted as carbon dioxide.

The move goes back on Biden's previous vow for "strong executive action" to combat climate change and his presidential campaign that promised NO new oil extractions.

The project draws fierce opposition from environmentalists and local Indigenous communities who say it will speed up the climate breakdown, undermine food security, and put vulnerable wildlife at even greater risk.

The approval of the Willow Project is a huge step backwards in addressing the climate crisis.

In order to improve climate change we need to keep global warming below 1.5°C. Humankind must end the expansion of fossil fuels and embrace clean energy alternatives.

It's hard to know how to help, but please join us and take action! You can join protest campaigns, sign petitions to bring issues to parliamentary debate, choose green energy options whenever possible, and vote wisely at every opportunity.