UNCERTAINTY IN THE SHALE GAS DEBATE: VIEWS FROM THE SCIENCE-POLICYMAKING INTERFACE.

• Author: Profiroiu, Constantin Marius

1. Introductory remarks

   Shale gas, an unconventional hydrocarbon resource which became accessible through a contested technology occurs within a complex, multilevel context, involving multiple stakeholders and different levels of governance. Europe has so far experienced a hesitant progress, mainly on environmental grounds. Policy formulation in Europe poses a great challenge because it represents a problem of decision-making under uncertainty considering that impact assessments are still being carried at European level. The European Commission has released so far only a non-binding Recommendation aimed to guide Member States and has sponsored several reports aimed to assess the environmental, economic and social impact of shale gas(European Commission's website, undated). Ivan (2013, p. 82) highlights that the European Commission has to make sure that operations comply with all applicable EU legislation and safeguard the safety of the environment and humans, in particular to paint a clear picture on potential risks and impacts. In an attempt to address concerns with sound scientific evidence, the European Commission has decided beginning with 2015, as part of its Horizon 2020 research and innovation program to grant about 12 million [euro] to two studies aimed to assess and mitigate the environmental footprint of shale gas exploration and exploitation (Kelly, 2015).

   The article is split in three main sections. First, the introductory part will briefly point to the literature on the environmental impact with the aim to identify the main risks, as well as knowledge about their impacts on environment. Considering that production from shale rock formations has not yet started in Europe, uncertainties should be clarified and properly assessed before being incorporated in the decision making process. The literature review shows that uncertainty significantly limits the degree to which science can provide a solid fundament for policy making. The second part sets out the research design based on an expert elicitation questionnaire which was employed to gain knowledge into the views of representatives of academia and scientific environment which have expertise in the shale gas research field. Lastly, the discussions section will reveal experts' view on the uncertainties in the process, barriers encountered when assessing relevant information, type of information which should be considered confidential and policy options to ease the science--policy relation. To conclude with, the article argues that, although environmental risks of shale gas development have been reviewed, the context is still surrounded by uncertainty which has to be properly assessed when taking governmental decisions or drafting regulatory framework to accompany the development of shale gas in Europe.

2. Shale gas: a tale of two sides

   There have been many discussions about the costs and benefits of developing shale gas among scientists, industry, representatives of environmental organizations, policy makers, and the general public. The debate was polarized around the potential gains in scoring emission targets (Howarth, Santoro and Ingraffea, 2011, p. 679; Wang, Ryanand Anthony, 2011, pp. 8196-8199), economic benefits (Husain et al., 2011; Medlock, 2012, pp. 33-37), energy independence (Geny, 2010, p.10; Melikoglu, 2014, p. 460) and national security (Kuhn and Umbach, 2011), as well as likely threats to the environment and public health. Boersma and Johnson (2012, p. 570) split the environmental impacts associated with shale gas in three main categories: (i) groundwater contamination and release of waste water, (ii) greenhouse gas and fugitive methane emissions, and (iii) increased seismic activity. First, hydraulic fracturing has been criticized for excessive water use (Kargbo, Wilhelm and Campbell, 2010, p. 5681; Zobak, Kitasei andCopithorne, 2010, p. 7) and polluting water due to potential toxicity of fracturing fluids (Chen et al., 2014, pp. 2546-2555; Colbornet al., 2011, pp. 1039-1056) and methane contaminating drinking water (Osborn et al., 2011, pp. 8172-8176; Wood, 2012, p. 4). Ground water issues have become an increasingly important area of research (Younger, 2014, p.7), particularly 'as a number of knowledge and information gaps relating to hydrogeological data exist, especially in the European context'. Second, shale gas emits greenhouse gas caused by fugitive methane, thus leading to harmful health impacts (Howarth, Santoro and Ingraffea, 2011, pp. 679-690; Wigley, 2011, pp. 601-608; White et al., 2015; Jones, Hillier and Comfort., 2013, p. 387). Finkel and Hays (2013, p. 889) have emphasized that 'scientific evidence on the impact of shale gas development on climate change is also highly contested considering that, despite the fact that natural gas burns cleaner than coal, methane is leaked and vented into the atmosphere throughout the lifecycle of shale gas development'. Researchers (Wigley, 2011, pp. 601-608; Cathleset al., 2012, pp. 525-535; Howarth, Santoro and Ingraffea, 2012, pp. 1-13; Wang et al., 2014, p. 16) sharing different views on the impact have emphasized that there are uncertainties related to methane leaks. Third, researchers have assessed the seismic risks (Ellsworth, 2013; Green, Styles and Baptie, 2012) portraying the likely impacts. To conclude with, Styles (2015, p. 314) reviews in detail the main environmental impacts of shale gas extraction concluding that there do not seem to be insurmountable obstacles to the extraction of shale gas 'in a properly regulated regime'. Wang et al. (2014, p. 1) have summarized the key reports, papers and analyses that show the evolution of shale gas, reviewed evidence of revolution in US, and discussed environmental challenges attached to shale gas exploration and exploitation and portrayed a wide range of views on the environmental impacts. Furthermore, Barcelo and Bennett (2015), scientists and co-Editors-in-Chief of Science of the Total Environment journal have painted a clear picture of environmental and human health risks of fracking by reviewing papers from 2012 up to first half of 2015 covering climate change, environmental health impacts, and risks to the aquatic environment issues. The scientists have concluded that fracking operations are not free of risk to the environment and human health; however, scientists have a different view when assessing impact.

   Cairneyet al. (2015, p.1) argue that 'there are two types of information relevant for the shale gas debate, that is the technical information, used to address scientific uncertainty, and political information, used to bolster agenda setting strategies'. This article will focus on the technical information used to address the scientific uncertainties, defined by the researchers (Cairney, Fischer and Ingold, 2015, p. 1) as 'the information on the technical aspects of unconventional gas development, as well as scientific information on potential implications for the environment'. For the purpose of this article, we argue that technical information relevant (but not exclusive) to the shale debate is data related to greenhouse gas emissions, leaked methane gas, groundwater pollution, chemicals used in the fracking technology, data on the water supply, risk of earthquakes-seismicity data, air and noise pollution to local areas, and infrastructure issues. The UK Environment Agency (2013, p.5) has summarized in a diagram the main risks (see Figure 1) which were taken into consideration for this research.

   We argue that science plays a key role in providing societal responses to these problems, but more importantly, it informs policy by producing objective, valid and reliable knowledge. Environmental issues are complex and fall within the realm of a number of scientific and socio-economic disciplines; are subject to integrated approaches and public participation. To better respond to the shale gas debate, a wide area of resources are employed, among which science and evidence based decision making (AEA, 2012; Boersmaand Johnson, 2012, pp. 570-576; Pearson et al., 2012; Eaton, 2013, pp. 158-169; Gamper-Rabindran, 2014, pp. 977-987), social dialogue and stakeholder consultation (North et al., 2014, pp. 8388-8396; Jacquet, 2014, pp. 83218333; Wheeler et al., 2015, 299-308) are of paramount importance. Environmental regulation, and in particular tailor made shale gas policy begs for a more rational, rigorous and systematic approach to policy-making. Fischer (2001, p. 34) argues that 'the demand for scientific expertise is especially strong among policy-makers in the environmental and natural resources policy, mainly because of the long term impact and uncertainty', view shared by Profiroiu (2006, p. 45) who draws attention to the fact that, in relation to environmental issues,' expertise becomes a key factor in organizing political activity'. This is particularly the case of shale gas which involves a new technology whose long-term impact is still under consideration and raises fierce debates.

   The link between scientific information and policy is not linear or unproblematic (Cairney, 2014). Involving science in the decision making process bears some criticism considering that scientific consensus does not necessarily guarantee the level of certainty demanded by policy makers. First, Levin and Cooper (2012, p.18) underlined that 'knowledge emerging from research (...) is subject to revision as time goes on'. This is especially a limiting factor in the shale gas process due to the insufficient track record. Second, Carney et al. (2015, p.3) emphasize that 'policymakers decide who and what information to trust, to help them develop a sense of risk associated with any decision'. Based on the risk level, policy makers decide on the acceptable risks counterbalanced by the likely benefits and take a decision. Policy makers are urged to take decisions despite the scarce availability of data and the knowledge gaps, despite...