The Biden administration has approved a controversial $8bn drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope. The ConocoPhillips Willow project will be one of the largest of its kind on US soil, involving drilling for oil and gas at three sites for multiple decades on the 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve, which is owned by the federal government and is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US. The project will emit the same amount of carbon as 76 coal-fired power plants.