As Canada continues to push its pro-tar sands message out across North America, Europe, Asia, it was greeted by protests at the COP17 Climate talks in South Africa. Yesterday members of the Canadian Youth Delegation were ejected from the meeting as Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent delivered his opening address. Just as Kent began his … Read More
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“Liability” Don Young Faces Ethics Probe
Alaskans are beginning to ask the multi-million dollar question about their veteran politician, and oil-industry stooge, Don Young. At the end of last month, one journalist writing for the Alaskan Dispatch newspaper asked “Are Don Young’s political antics an Alaska asset or liability?” The trouble for Alaskans is that Young, whose slogan is the “Congressman … Read More
Record CO2 Emissions and a Deal by … 2020
The daunting task of somehow creating a meaningful post-Kyoto deal at the Durban climate talks has been made even more urgent by the news that global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuels jumped by the largest amount on record last year. According to new research by the Global Carbon Project (GCP) emissions of CO2 rose … Read More
Tar Sands: “No Safe Way to Market”
The top brass of BP and Shell will have not been amused this morning when they opened their Financial Times to see a half page advert staring at them about the ecological cost of the tar sands. The advert, entitled: “Tar sands – 23 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil” demands that … Read More
A Culture Beyond Oil
“There is no money that is completely pure”, so says Nicholas Serota, the Director of the Tate gallery in London that is under fire once again for taking oil money from BP and Shell. Serota is right in many ways, there is no such thing as clean money but some funding is dirtier than others. … Read More
Tar Sands: Britain is “Canada’s Partner in Crime”
Late last week on the eve of the Durban climate talks, the British Climate Change secretary, Chris Huhne boasted that Britain was showing “leadership” in the UN negotiations. But whilst Britain is bragging about leading the climate change fight, it is still leading the pro-tar sands charge in Europe; a somewhat hypocritical position. This dirty … Read More
Shale Gas “Will Wreck Climate Commitments”
Further to my blog earlier in the week criticising the Financial Times’ new “let’s happily drill the land of plenty” philosophy to oil shale and gas, of course there is downside to these new found reserves of oil. The big fat elephant in the room missed by the FT and ignored by the oil industry … Read More
Chevron Faces Possible Brazil Drilling Ban
Eighteen months after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, we have another country threatening to ban an oil company after a deep water spill. Yesterday it was Brazil’s turn to say it might ban Chevron from drilling in its deep water oilfields as punishment for the 3,000 barrel oil spill from the company’s Frade project. Chevron has … Read More
Don’t Look Away Now
Love it or loath it as the voice of business, you can say one thing about the Financial Times, it normally covers the energy beat with a reasonable degree of accuracy. That’s why is was so disappointing to read the latest misguided comment piece by the paper’s Washington columnist Edward Luce, in an article “Look … Read More
Oil Spill off Rio Sets Chevron at the Center of Scandal
Chevron is at the center of a scandal over the oil spill in the offshore Campos Basin Frade field about 230 miles from the coast of northeast Rio de Janeiro. Originally the company said that the spill was natural seepage from the field. Well, no, it appears it was not. The scandal began to unravel on … Read More