“During the ban [on Arctic drilling] there will be an opportunity to achieve environmental goals that will help to avoid or reduce the negative effects of drilling on the Arctic environment,” the organization’s website quotes Igor Chestin, WWF Russia’s director, as saying Tuesday.
Putting a 10-year ban on Arctic drilling would be in the interests of both oil giants and ecologists, WWF experts claim. As falling oil prices make Arctic drilling unprofitable, the ban would be economically prudent.
WWF experts — Sergey Bobylev, professor of Moscow State University, and Leonid Grigoriev, professor of Higher School of Economics – assert that the ban on Arctic drilling will help follow through on the development on innovative technologies to be used when oil prices recover.
The campaign was launched as part of an annual global Earth Hour event which encourages individuals to turn off the lights for one hour to save energy. The 2015 Earth Hour is scheduled for March 28.
