He may be seen as a lame-duck Prime Minister in his last few months in office, but when Tony Blair closed the World Economic Forum in Davos, he held out hopes for a major breakthrough on a post-Kyoto climate-change accord as his crowning achievement of ten years in office.
Blog Post
Cheney’s Smirk
“You going to watch the State of the Union?” I asked a friend Tuesday. “I’m going to listen on the radio. I want to hear it, but I don’t want to have to look at him.” Understandable, but by only listening, my friend missed the key to the speech. Viewers might have missed it, too … Read More
Despite the Democrats, Big Oil Subsidies Continue
Well the public perception is that it is all change at Congress. With the Democrats in power, one of their promises is to get rid of nasty subsidies to the oil industry. Well apparently not. Great article by Laura MacCleery, who is the director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, on TomPaine. According to MacCleery: … Read More
Oil Leak Exposes Weaknesses in World Bank Pipeline
The World Bank-backed Chad-Cameroon pipeline, that brings oil from landlocked Chad along a 1,100km-pipeline to Cameroon, has run into trouble after springing a leak. Local Cameroonian NGOs, the Centre for Environment and Development (CED) and the Network for the Fight Against Hunger, have alleged that there was a delay in detecting the leak and the … Read More
Shell Plans Deepest Alaskan Well Ever
Oil giant Shell, which abandoned U.S. Arctic exploration 21 years ago, plans to expand its search for oil by drilling the deepest offshore Alaskan well ever. The oil company plans to drill one well to 14,000 feet beneath the sea floor (4,267 metres), which would exceed the deepest well ever drilled in Alaskan waters by … Read More
Davos: Merkel Calls for Binding Carbon Cuts
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called upon all countries to join a binding post-Kyoto settlement on cutting greenhouse gases when she opened the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday. She said that the two greatest challenges facing the world were climate change and energy security. “We need a binding regime that includes all of those who … Read More
Lukoil Seeks $12 Billion of Assets in Europe
Lukoil, Russia’s largest oil company, is slowly buying up influence in Europe according to an article in the Financial Times. Whilst, its rival, Gazprom has often stirred controversy through headline-making projects, Lukoil is quietly concentrating on countries in south-east Europe where Russia is seen with less suspicion than the rest of the continent.
Bush’s Plans May Cause More Harm Than Good
Bush’s plans to tackle climate change and reduce foreign oil dependence have been widely condemned by environmental groups. Jan Kowalzig of Friends of the Earth Europe said that whilst ethanol from corn is “carbon neutral”, production of ethanol requires fossil fuels. “Transportation of the fuels, processing of the fuels – all that requires energy which … Read More
Devils in details: State of the Union
If you listened to, or read, President Bush’s speech last night, you might be thinking that a 20% reduction in gasoline use over the next decade sounds pretty good. That is, until you go to the White House website to read the details of the plan, in which they use a word the President conveniently … Read More
A Tinge Of Green from the Lame Duck President
Did we witness the first green shoots of an ailing President in his State of the Union address? After all the hype of what Bush was going to say about a radical course of direction on climate change, with him calling for a mandatory cap on emissions, it predictably failed to materialize. No surprises there … Read More