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
Germany is gripped by football world cup fever ahead of its semi-final clash with Italy tonight. What is not making the news is the fact that the German government has just allowed German industry to emit millions more tonnes of carbon dioxide.
The National Allocation Plan II, that covers policy from 2008 to 2012, and which has just received cabinet approval, allows industry and electricity companies to emit 482 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. This is actually an increase of 8 million tonnes from the year before and goes against the commitments that Germany made under the Kyoto
BP’s woes continue. Hurricanes, explosions, spills, price-fixing and now a production short-fall. BP admitted yesterday that it produced less oil in the past three months than many analysts had predicted, leading some suggesting it could miss its crucial production targets for the year.
The company has blamed Venezuelan President Hugo Cavez for the shortfall at the same time as Chavez is demanding that BP give up even more of the oil produced from the country.
Maybe Tony Blair should have changed a few more light bulbs than just the one outside Downing Street, (see blog below), as Labour has admitted it will break a key election pledge to radically cut CO2 emissions. Although the target is a 20 per cent cut by 2010 - Labour has acknowledged emissions will only be reduced by 16 per cent.
Sometimes it’s the simple things that are best. By just using low-energy light bulbs and other efficient lighting systems we could prevent some 16 billion tons of carbon from being emitted over the next 25 years, according to a report by the International Energy Agency. Just using widely available technology would save more than £1,300bn concludes the IEA.
Just as Americans drive bigger cars (see recent blogs) they also use more lights. The average American family uses 10 times more artificial light than a Chinese home and more than 30 times as much as an Indian home.
However, an estimated 1.6 billion
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.