MOSCOW, December 10 (Sputnik) — Some 205 UK anti-fracking groups called on Prime Minister David Cameron to ban the controversial gas extraction technique until a proper assessment of its effect on individuals and communities is carried out, in a letter to be delivered on Wednesday.
The signatories urged Cameron to act on the findings of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation report, personally delivered to Cameron in November. The report suggested that fracking puts at risk a number of important human rights, including the rights to life, security and privacy of person, "as well as centrally important international human rights such as the right to water and to health."
A technique of extracting shale gas by injecting pressurized liquid into the soil, widely known as fracking, has sparked a major controversy in Europe and the United States. Concerns over fracking include risks of contaminating groundwater, increased carbon emissions caused by leaking methane gas and even earthquakes induced by injections.
In the United Kingdom fracking was suspended between June 2011 and April 2012 after it was thought to have triggered a number of minor earthquakes, but resumed after an investigation into the incidents concluded that the risk of more earthquakes was minimal.
