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
The European Parliament's Environment Committee has said that the EU must wean the transport sector off oil entirely within a generation.
I remember at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill that one of the Trustees of the Oil Spill Board said something like "Lawyers not yet born will work on this one".
The BP spill on the North Slope is still reverberating - here is a post to the "safepipelines" discussion group:
We are facing at least a metre rise in sea-level by the end of this century, scientists have warned. Half of the Greenland ice cap and vast areas of Antarctica are destined to melt if climate change continues unabated.
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
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.
This report finds that the EU’s demand for gas is set to decline significantly in line with climate targets, eliminating the need to expand supply from new fields or infrastructure. In the report the authors model how EU’s gas demand matches future supply in various forecasted scenarios.