The capacity of the legal system to manage environmental risk through Environmental Impact Assessment (‘EIA’): a study on natural gas fracking

Abstract

The demand for energy has motivated the expansion of natural gas hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) in recent years in many countries across the globe, including the United States (‘US’) and Australia. Natural gas, large reserves of which can be tapped through fracking, tends to be viewed as a ‘bridging fuel’, linking the carbon-intensive past with a more sustainable future – one that complies with the Paris Agreement’s goal of reducing global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Although a fossil fuel, natural gas has been heralded as being less emissions-intensive than coal. Yet natural gas, which is primarily comprised of methane, is nonetheless an importan..