Bahamas Faces Oil Drilling Questions at COP26

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – The Minister of State for the environment was put on the spot at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow as an international environmentalist asked if the Davis administration will move ahead with oil drilling. She warned this would be a massively grave mistake.

Our Vaughnique Toote got the Prime Minister’s response.

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The controversial issue of oil drilling in The Bahamas was dredged up in Glasgow. An international environmentalist with strong ties to The Bahamas pleaded with the Davis Administration not to go down that path. As an oil company awaited the government’s decision on the renewal of its licenses, Our News asked Prime Minister Davis to respond to widespread concerns about oil drilling.

Amber Nuttall, who is the Co-founder of “Extreme Hangout” put Minister of State for the Environment Basil McIntosh on the spot today when she asked him, during an environmental youth-based forum in Glasgow, if the new government intended to move ahead with oil drilling.

In August, Challenger Energy Group, formerly known as Bahamas Petroleum Company, revealed it has reinvigorated the search for a farm-in partner for the next phase in its continued efforts to find oil in the southern Bahamas.

CEG said, at the time, it is awaiting the government’s decision on the renewal of its licenses.

The company completed its first exploratory perseverance at the beginning of the year but did not find commercial quantities of oil.

Nuttall, who is the daughter of the late Sir Nicholas Nuttall, who founded the Bahamas Reef Environmental Educational Foundation, said she wanted to hear McIntosh say to young climate activists The Bahamas won’t hold other world leaders to account at COP26 only to go home and issue license renewals.

Nuttall, who spent half of her life in The Bahamas, says she would love to see countries like The Bahamas lead the way in the renewal energy sector and receive funding to do so.