Earth Summit 2002 - Greenpeace

Monday, 15 July, 2002, Oslo: A controversial experiment, involving dumping 5.4 tonnes of liquid carbon dioxide in the sea off Norway this (Northern) summer, has been postponed today in response to growing international opposition.

The dumping of industrial waste at sea, including CO2 derived from fossil fuel use, is illegal under both the London Convention and the OSPAR Convention. Norway is a member of both these conventions.

"This experiment threatens international laws designed to stop the ocean being used as a dumping ground. It must never happen," said Truls Gulowsen, Norwegian Greenpeace climate campaigner.

A consortium of research institutions from USA, Norway, Canada, Australia and Japan funds the experiment, designed to test disposing of greenhouse pollution in the ocean. A similar project has already been rejected by Hawaii due to public protest. The consortium announced today that they were postponing their plans until after the Environment Ministry had considered environmental, political and legal concerns raise about the project.

Over the last few weeks serious concerns have been raised in Norway and internationally about this project. At the recent OSPAR meeting in Amsterdam two weeks ago, after Greenpeace drew attention to the proposal, the OSPAR Commission recognised the seriousness of this issue and agreed on the need to come to a common position on this as soon as possible.

CO2 is the world's biggest industrial waste product. Most comes from the burning of oil, coal and gas and it is the primary cause of climate change.

According to their own project specification, it is too late for the project to be able to go ahead this year. In this document, it is clearly stated that it is necessary to conduct the experiment during summertime to safeguard research results and safety.

"If they still decide to push forward to do the experiment in the fall, with bad weather conditions, it is nothing but another proof that this is not at all about science, but a ‘proof of concept' to reopen for large scale dumping of waste CO2 into the ocean," says Truls Gulowsen at Greenpeace.

The consortium had expected it could rush through approval for this project very quietly without anyone knowing about it," said Gulowsen. "To stop these unsustainable proposals project once and for all, the Norwegian Environment Minister must now officially reject the proposal. This is the only way to avoid the attempts to dump vast amounts of CO2 into the oceans and encourage even further use of climate changing fossil fuels."

As part of its Choose Positive Energy Tour in the lead up the World Summit in Johannesburg the Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior will arrive in Oslo on Tuesday. Greenpeace will meet with Norwegian Environment Ministry officials and organisations opposed to ocean dumping on board the Rainbow Warrior this week.

For more information:
Truls Gulowsen, +47 22 20 8379, mobile +47 9010 7904
Erika Augustinsson, +46 70 321 7364

Read the Greenpeace position paper on ocean dumping of CO2 at http://www.greenpeace.to/pdfs/co2dump.pdf.

Find the Greenpeace report on ocean dumping of CO2 at http://www.greenpeace.to/pdfs/co2dump.pdf.

Find information on the campaign by to stop CO2 dumping in Hawaii at http://www.Kahea.org.

Find information on the OSPAR Convention (Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) at http://www.ospar.org/eng/html/welcome.html.

Find information on the London Convention (Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, 1972) at http://www.londonconvention.org/.