Yesterday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the importance of making energy available to the poor as a foundation for combating poverty as world leaders gathered in New York this week at the Millennium Development Goal Summit. At a high-level event yesterday, the Secretary General said that it is lack of political will that is keeping … Read More
financing oil and gas
Crunch time for the EITI
Tomorrow the International Board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is holding its Annual meeting in Berlin. The EITI was set up by ex-British Prime Minister, Tony Blair to try and improve improved governance in resource-rich countries through the verification and full publication of company payments and government revenues from oil, gas and mining. The … Read More
EU Stance on Climate Undermined by its Dirty Bank
On the eve of the Copenhagen Summit, the EU’s attempts to portray themselves as leading the international effort to reduce carbon dioxide have been shown to be completely hypocritical by a new report. Despite the promises by the EU’s politicians to lead on climate change, the EU’s own bank continues to invest heavily in fossil … Read More
FT: Ending subsidies is “An idea whose time has come”
I don’t know how many G20 leaders will have time to read the FT website today, but they should. The paper’s editorial is nothing short of staggering. It starts by stating “As addictions go, the world’s addiction to fossil fuels is a killer.” Coming from the mouthpiece of one of the world’s financial capitals, which … Read More
Ending Subsidies or Shifting Blame?
So the political road-show moves from the UN up to the G20 at Pittsburgh, where climate and the banking crisis will be on the table. And so will a discussion about ending fossil fuel subsidies. For years campaigners have been arguing for the ending of the tax breaks and other incentives given to the fossil … Read More
Money for Nothing, and your Climate for Free
According to a leaked letter, the Obama Administration is set to propose ending fossil fuel subsidies next week at the Pittsburgh G20. The letter, authored by Michael Froman who is an Obama advisor on international economic affairs, calls on the G20 to eliminate all fossil fuel and electricity subsidies, as a “logical step in combating … Read More
Controversial Oil Leases Cancelled in Utah
I hope this one really annoys George W, the recently departed President of the United States and his oil industry cronies. In what is a signal that Obama’s administration is changing direction in relation to energy poicy on public lands, the newly installed Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has cancelled 77 highly controversial oil and gas … Read More
Bailing out Bidder 70
I never have been big on rules. And neither apparently, is Tim DeChristopher. He’s the young activist who just completely derailed the Bush Administration’s plans to sell more of our public lands to the oil companies. He sat in the lease sale in Salt Lake City on December 19th and “bought” 22,500 acres of public … Read More
World Bank’s “Slightly Cleaner Technology Fund”
At a briefing today on the Stategic Framework on Climate Change and Development, a World Bank official conceded that the proposed “Clean Technology Fund” might better be called the “Slightly Cleaner Technology Fund,” but said she would not go so far as to call it the “Dirty Technology Fund.” Addressing Members of the UN Permanent … Read More
The Oil and Gas Bank
A new report by oil-watchdog PLATFORM investigates how one of Britain’s biggest banks is fuelling climate change. The report ‘The Oil & Gas Bank – RBS & the Financing of Climate Change‘ investigates RBS-NatWest’s role in fuelling climate change, forcing open new carbon frontiers, and exacerbating conflict.