Tomorrow is the “Great Climate Swoop” where hundreds of climate activists will demonstrate against E.ON’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottingham. It is a protest aimed at raising the issue of climate change in the run up to the Copenhagen Summit in December. But the planned protest has caused a strong backlash from the Police. Already there are … Read More
Month: October 2009
Big Oil Front Group Fights for Tar Sands
The debate on energy and climate is littered with corporate front groups scare-mongering over action on climate change at the moment. On the blog we have recently talked about the American Petroleum Institute’s astroturf “Energy Citizen” campaign and American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCE)’s fake letter writers.
Oil Demand from Developed Countries Peaked in 2005
For a while now there has been a growing consensus that, whilst many people worry about peak supply of oil, peak demand is also an issue, especially in developed countries. I blogged on this back in August, after an analysis by Oil Change, Greenpeace and Platform, argued we could be seeing a demand peak. Well … Read More
Dying for a Drink?
In these days of climate change it is all too easy to forget about the other pollution that belches from the chimney stacks of our power stations or pours from its pipes into our rivers. So good on the New York Times for running a series called “Toxic Waters” that looks at the worsening pollution … Read More
Protestors and Advisors Tell UK Gov to Act on Climate
Headline on the BBC’s flagship radio show, the Today programme at 8.00 AM this morning: 20-odd Greenpeace protestors have spent the night on the House of Commons to highlight the government’s lack of action on climate change. Next headline: a report by the Government’s own advisors on climate change says the government must do more … Read More
Rich should “rise to the challenge rather than race to the bottom”
For all the people who dared to dream that some kind of deal could be realised at Copenhagen comes the cold reality that time is basically running out. Fast. And there is less than sixty days to go. The Bangkok talks have ended in failure. The gap between what is needed and what the current … Read More
King Coal Crumbles ..
Environmental activists across the globe are celebrating this morning after the energy giant E.On shelved its controversial plans for a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent in the UK. Blaming the recession and not the sustained three-year campaign to stop it, E.ON, said the fall for electricity had caused it to re-think.
De-dollarisation of Oil Market by 2018
Sometimes a story grows legs, other times it hits the dust. But yesterday’s front page story in the Independent about negotiations to end oil trading in dollars seems to have hit a raw nerve and sent shock-waves through the currency markets. In response to the story, gold is now trading at record levels and the … Read More
Oil Traders to Ditch the Dollar…
The dollar is sliding on the currency markets this morning after reports by the Independent newspaper that Arab states are in secret talks with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading. The move – if it happens – would be the most profound financial change in recent Middle East … Read More
Senate Bill Will not be Signed before Copenhagen
So the cracks have become a widening chasm. Amongst the grinding deadlock of the climate talks is the growing realism that President Obama faces not just one public humiliation in Copenhagen but two. All in a space of just over three months. Fresh from his defeat over the Olympics, he now faces going to the … Read More