GLOBAL POLICY
The Paris climate goals demand a rapid, just transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. We’re pushing governments to lead the way by adopting policies to end oil and gas production.
OVERVIEW OF WORK
In order to achieve climate goals, governments and other decision makers must support a just and equitable move away from fossil fuels. We are pushing for precedent-setting leadership from governments to put policies in place to manage the decline of oil and gas and ensure a just transition for fossil-fuel dependent workers and communities.
Building from a growing group of first mover governments, we are pressuring for increasing numbers of national and regional governments to end new licenses and permits for oil and gas production, and to develop plans to wind down their existing production over time.
LATEST PROGRAM POSTS
Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, has warned that sea-level rise is increasing much faster than scientists predicted just five years ago. This is severely threatening many of the world's coastal and low-lying areas from Bangladesh to Nigeria.
The present prediction of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, from its third assessment report in 2001, is that global sea levels will rise by between 9cm and 88cm by 2100, depending on a number of factors including how far emissions are controlled, with a best guess of about 50cm over the century.
Ever wondered how much of the oil price is pure hype or fear? Well there is an interesting article in today’s New York Times, which quotes Michael Rose, the director of the energy trading desk at Angus Jackson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida who says that “Crude is coming down because it was way too high,” Mr. Rose said. “We had so much fear put into this market, that somewhere between 10 and 20 dollars were fear premium.”
As climate change moves up the political agenda, with even rumours that President Bush is going to make an a massive U-turn on the subject, another bastion of sceptics is starting to worry about the subject – OPEC.At a recent OPEC conference in Vienna,
Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency told OPEC delegates: “The main long term challenge is definitely the necessity to reconcile oil with environmental demands”. Mandil also said the 11 Middle Eastern, African and Asian nations in OPEC could not afford to ignore concerns about climate change.
Renewable energy provides just over 6 percent of total U.S. energy, but that figure could increase rapidly, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute and the Center for American Progress, "American Energy: The Renewable Path to Energy Security."
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
This new report, “Public Enemies: Assessing MDB and G20 international finance institutions’ energy finance” looks at G20 country and MDB traceable international public finance for fossil fuels from 2020-2022 and finds they are still backing at least USD 47 billion per year in oil, gas, and coal projects.
This briefing assesses Shell’s fossil fuel extraction plans in light of Shell's appeal of a Dutch court verdict requiring the company to take responsibility for its climate pollution. Our analysis shows that Shell continues to plan for levels of oil and gas production and investment that undermine the world’s chances of curtailing climate disaster.
The countries that produce oil and gas from the North Sea (Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark) rank among the countries with the greatest economic capacity and responsibility to rapidly phase out extraction, and to finance just transitions to renewable energy solutions domestically and abroad.