Global Post: UK to lead EU frack fight?
UN climate chiefs have backed hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as part of the solution to global warming, according to a report carried by the Telegraph newspaper on Sunday. Fracking is the controversial process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth.
Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the working group that drew up the report, said it was "quite clear" that shale gas "can be very consistent with low carbon development and decarbonization."
The comments give support to British Prime Minister David Cameron's earlier call for energy independence and the adoption of technologies like shale gas fracking to top Europe's political agenda. Cameron said on March 25 that the Crimea crisis was a "wake-up call" for states reliant on Russian gas. Britain has a "duty" to embrace fracking, he added.
Europe fears that Russia might cut off the gas supply that they rely on as retaliation to Western sanctions.