For the past year, the World Bank has been reviewing its strategy for energy lending. Responding to years of critiques and complaints from communities, activists, the Bank has taken a year to confirm what development advocates have been saying for quite a while: ensuring energy access for the poor is a critical step in alleviating … Read More
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Gas is No “Panacea” For Climate Change
As the old saying goes âIf it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck.â And if it smells like a fossil fuel and is produced by the fossil fuel industry, then it probably is a fossil fuel. So despite the best efforts by the oil … Read More
Deadline Day for Comments on Keystone
Today is the final day for public comment to the US Department of State over the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the highly controversial Keystone XL. Seen as a litmus test for the Obama administrationâs policies on climate change, Keystone XL is the proposed 1700-mile oil pipeline that is planned to bring some 830,000 barrels … Read More
Fracking âCausing Earthquakesâ
For an industry that prides itself on precision engineering and drilling, fracking is a brutal technique with unforeseen consequences. The oil industry is trying to argue that fracking which exploits shale gas is a âgame changerâ that will guarantee energy security for years to come. But the industry already faces growing public opposition due to … Read More
âThis is the worst news on emissionsâ
When historians look back at the beginning of this century, one of the complex phenomena that they must unravel is that as the warnings about climate change got more severe, the stronger the conspiracy became that it was not happening. Take just the last 24 hours. Yesterday, the Guardian ran with the headline that âWorst … Read More
Regulator Acts Against Oil Speculators
One of the political mantras of those old boys at the American Petroleum is that if the gas price is too high it means we have to drill for more oil. Plain and simple. Its good old fashioned economics: supply and demand. If the price is too high, we must be faced with a physical … Read More
Chevron Guilty: Clean Up the Amazon!
Last week it was Shellâs AGM and its turn to face the wrath of shareholders and activists for its appalling environmental record. This week its Chevronâs turn with its AGM tomorrow. Protests kicked off in dramatic style yesterday, when activists from Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network rappelled from the Richmond Bridge in the San … Read More
Dash for Shale Gas Undermines Wind
The last time that Americaâs pro-wind lobby came together for its regular get-together was in California in 2007. That time there were 5,000 attendees and the installed wind capacity in the US was 17 gigawatts. Four years later and on the surface it is a success story for Americaâs pro-wind lobby. Yesterday saw the opening … Read More
Empty threats should not be made at âfriendsâ
Albertaâs minister of energy Ron Liepert was in New York this week and took the opportunity to threaten the State Department over the slow pace (as he sees it) of the approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline is designed to carry up to 900,000 barrels per day of mostly tar sands derived … Read More
And for Shell We Present an âErratumâ
Sometimes the best protests are the most simple and symbolic. Yesterday, Shellâs shareholders and senior management at the companyâs AGM in the Hague were presented with an âerratumâ to the companyâs recent Annual Report. The spoof report by Friends of the Earth looks like a real Shell report, until you start to read it. For … Read More