Ministers block disposal of oil rigs at sea

摘要

Europe's environment ministers last week ended three years of public controversy about the fate of disused oil rigs in the northeast Atlantic ocean. They decided that most will have to be dismantled onshore, rather than disposed of in the sea. The decision was made at a meeting of countries belonging to the Oslo-Paris (Ospar) convention on protecting the marine environment. Ministers attending the meeting in Sintra, Portugal, also agreed to reduce radioactivity in emissions from nuclear plants to "close to zero" by 2020 (see below).