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
Great article on Alternet today by Chad Heeter about the amount of fossil fuels needed to make your average breakfast. According to Heeter "an average of over seven calories of fossil fuel is burned up for every calorie of energy we get from our food. This means that in eating my 400 calorie breakfast, I will, in effect, have 'consumed' 2,800 calories of fossil-fuel energy".
"But this is only an average" he continues. "My cup of coffee gives me only a few calories of energy, but to process just one pound of coffee requires over 8,000 calories of fossil-fuel energy --
In the first ever ranking of the Top 100 companies, BP and DuPont have come out as top "leaders" for their climate change strategies. Not surprisingly ExxonMobil is seen as a "laggard".
Tony Blair has been accused of caving in to American pressure by proposing a new "watered-down" replacement for the Kyoto Protocol that relies on new technology rather than binding emission cuts as the solution to climate change.
Yesterday, The Independent newspaper in the UK did something rather amazing - it asked it's readers for their views. Rather than giving readers the usual dose of opinion from the great and the good, the paper asked for the opinion of its readers. And they asked it on the most pressing issue of all: Climate change. The paper is then going to send these comments to the All-Party Inquiry on Climate Change.
Today the paper published the results in what they call the "Great Global Warming Debate". The response, says The Independent, "has been nothing short of extraordinary".
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
Illustration by Pawel Kuczynski
Summary
Governments have spent over $20 billion – and have approved up to $200 billion more – of public money on carbon capture and storage (CCS), providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry.
79% of operating carbon capture capacity globally sends captured CO2 to produce more oil (via Enhanced Oil Recovery).
Many of the largest CCS projects in the world overpromise and under-deliver, operating far below capacity.
Carbon, Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCS or CCUS) has a 50-year history of failure. CCS is often presented as a new technology to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by trapping
Oil and gas companies, and some governments, are more interested in looking like they are acting on climate change than actually acting on climate change. They spend billions on smoke and mirrors, such as:
“carbon capture and storage”,
“certified gas”, and
ammonia co-firing, and hydrogen,
to make us believe that they are coming up with solutions for a livable planet when, in reality, they are trying to build escape hatches to suck every last ounce of profit out of their dirty fossil fuel business. These companies and their lobbyists are counting on adding loopholes in the final UN Climate Change Conference
Download the briefing in English or Japanese.
Despite the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels, Japan is driving the expansion of liquified gas (LNG) and other fossil-based technologies like ammonia co-firing across Asia and globally. This will worsen the climate crisis and harm communities and ecosystems. Communities and movements are rising up – particularly in the Global South – to oppose Japan’s efforts to derail the transition to renewable-based energy systems.
The Japanese government is the world’s second-largest provider of international public finance for fossil fuels and the world’s largest provider of international public finance for gas. Japan has continued financing international fossil fuel projects this year, breaking