This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A global campaign backed by 450 activist groups and celebrities, including actors Emma Thompson and Mark Ruffalo, is calling on the UN to endorse a global end to fracking before the industry torpedoes efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

The open letter to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, includes signatures from individuals representing global environmental movements, universities and faith groups.

The campaign also has backing from writer and activist Naomi Klein and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.

Q&A What is fracking? Show Hide Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a way of extracting natural gas from shale rock formations that are often deep underground. It involves pumping water, chemicals and usually sand underground at high pressure to fracture shale – hence the name – and release the gas trapped within to be collected back at the surface. The technology has transformed the US energy landscape in the last decade, owing to the combination of high-volume fracking – 1.5m gallons of water per well, on average – and the relatively modern ability to drill horizontally into shale after a vertical well has been drilled. In England, the government placed a moratorium on fracking in November 2019 after protests, legal challenges and planning rejections. A year earlier, the energy company Cuadrilla was forced to stop work at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire twice in four days due to minor earthquakes occurring while it was fracking. The tremors breached a seismic threshold imposed after fracking caused minor earthquakes at a nearby Cuadrilla site in 2011. In March 2019 the high court ruled that the government's fracking guidelines were unlawful because they had failed to sufficiently consider scientific evidence against fracking.

The open letter said fracking for fossil fuels “torpedoes our global efforts to tackle climate change and violates basic human rights”. Hydraulic fracturing is more commonly known as fracking and involves pumping water, chemicals and sand underground at high pressure to fracture shale rock and release trapped oil and gas.

The open letter to the UN comes seven years after the UN Environment Programme issued a global alert on fracking, which concluded it may have adverse environmental impacts even if done properly.

The letter also points to the “overwhelming scientific documenting” of the fracking industry’s negative impact on the environment, public health and the climate crisis. The activist signatories include members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

Robert Howarth, a professor at Cornell University in the US and one of the letter’s signatories, said fracking for shale gas was a climate disaster because the process releases huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

He said: “Over the past decade, methane levels have been rising rapidly in the atmosphere, contributing significantly to the unprecedented global climate disruption seen in recent years.”

Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and threatens to accelerate the pace of global heating.

Howarth added: “Over 60% of the increased global methane emissions are from the oil and gas industry, and shale gas development in North America is responsible for one-third of the increased emissions from all sources.”

Emma Thompson, who also supported the climate protests led by Extinction Rebellion in central London earlier this year, said: “Fracking is the fossil fuel world’s worst idea to date” and called it “an affront to common sense, common health and the safety of the planet”.

She added: “It’s pointless, expensive, doesn’t create jobs that will serve a community, but it does pollute, damage and contribute to wrecking the climate. Its poisonous presence in our green and pleasant land is an as a whole.”