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
More grim news from the American Advancement of Science annual meeting. According to scientists, the world's glaciers are in crisis, from Greeenland, Patagonia, Tibet to Africa and Antarctica. They are all melting rapidly.
The amount of ice the Greenland ice sheet is loosing has doubled over the last five years.
"Fifteen years ago, we thought Greenland [glaciers] were not doing anything," says Eric Rignot from NASA. Now, ice sheets below an elevation of 2 kilometers show "major melting," he said. "We're going over the edge," he argues. Temperatures along Antartica's peninsula are rising six times faster than the global average.
Mark Dyurgerov, a
Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta have suffered yet another significant legal setback. The oil company has been ordered by a Nigerian Court to pay $1.5 billion in damages to communities in Ijaw in Baylesa State for polluting their creeks and despoiling their crops.
The court decision is seen as a significant setback for Shell, already reeling from recent attacks on its installations and a spate of hostage-taking. Shell is also refusing to abide by another court ruling that has ordered the company to stop gas flaring.
It is now forty years since the first communities in the Delta started complaining of
It’s winter in Vermont, although it’s 40 degrees in Burlington, there’s no snow on the ground and my neighbor, Tom, is moping about the house. He has a new collapsible ice shanty, auger and tip-ups sitting in his basement unused, because the ice on Lake Champlain (what there is of it) is not thick enough to support ice fishing.
Britain and other EU countries worrried about climate change could lose thier ability to impose taxes or restrictions on airlines under a draft treaty between the EU and US which actually curtails the power of national governments.
The treaty which is known as the "Open Skies" agreement, is meant to liberalise aviation. But it includes a clause requiring EU states to reach agreement not only with each other but also the US before taking measures to tackle noise or air pollution from airlines.
So now we have a situation where Europe will have to gain approval from the US to curb air
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
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.
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
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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