A jury in the north of England will decide today whether 22 climate change activists who boarded a coal train heading to the notorious Drax power station are innocent or guilty.

The accused had stopped a train carrying 42,000 tonnes of coal in June last year on its way to Drax in North Yorkshire, the biggest coal-fired power station in Europe. Continue reading ‘Coal’s Judgement Day’

Do leopards change their spots? Of course not.

The world’s largest oil company, that has been the leading funder of climate sceptics for a decade, is still continuing to fund the deniers, despite a public promise last year to stop funding organisations that “divert attention”  from the fight against climate change. Continue reading ‘Exxon Still Funding Sceptics’

So the United Arab Emirates has won the race to host the new International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) beating off competition from Bonn and Vienna.

Never mind that the UAE has the highest per capita carbon footprint in the world, a fact that had attracted strong opposition from other countries. Never mind that the UAE is a large oil and gas exporter. Continue reading ‘A Nuclear-Tainted and Oil-Soaked Renewable Energy Agency?’

A consortium led by oil giant BP and China’s CNPC has today won the contract for the vast Rumaila oil field - the largest oil field in Iraq and one of the biggest in the world.

The acquisition will be seen as a huge boost to BP, which has been seeking to get control of the field for years. It is the first contract to be awarded in Iraq’s first oil and gas field tender open to international companies in nearly three decades. Continue reading ‘Iraq: BP Wins the Prize’

When Peter Voser (on the right of the photo) takes the helm of the oil giant Shell on Wednesday, he might just start beginning to wonder what a complete mess he has inherited from his predecessor, van der Veer (he’s on the left).

This mess is graphically illustrated in a 32 page devastating critique of van der Veer’s time at the head of Shell, which can be downloaded here. Continue reading ‘Peter’s Second Problem: Shell Climate Crimes Exposed’