UK climate advisory committee approves fracking, with conditions

BBC : The UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has said fracking in the country can go ahead if three conditions are met: Emissions must be strictly limited at all stages of construction, operation, and decommissioning; total UK gas consumption must not increase, which means shale gas must displace imported gas; and shale gas emissions must be included in the UK’s already established carbon budgets. The UK government says it already intends to abide by the restrictions, but environmentalists argue that shale gas production will overwhelm the country’s attempts to meet its climate change goals. The CCC predicated its decision on a range of projections for gas production, with the most extreme production model predicting 11 million tons of CO₂ emissions per year by 2030. That amount is just one-fourth of the country’s emissions from agriculture and land-use change. The government will make its final decision on whether to allow fracking—at two sites in Lancashire—by 6 October.