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
Chomsky: " Well, you know, if you have three gray cells functioning, you know that...the U.S. invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources..."
http://www.alternet.org/story/30487/
Today's Independent newspaper carries an indepth interview with celebrated scientist, James Lovelock who invented the "Gaia" theory thirty years ago.
His new book, called the The Revenge of Gaia is published next month. In it Lovelock argues that climate change has already past the point of no return and that billions of people will die before the end of the century.
On the Independent's website, the Lovelock article is running opposite a BP advert saying "Its time to listen".
Don't you just love irony.
So the Bush administration has just given the green light to oil and gas exploration in an area of the Arctic that even the hard-line Reagan administration wanted to protect.
Frustrated by its failure to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Bush administration has given the green light to open up an area in the nearby National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
The news reported in the scientific journal Nature this month that trees might be account for about 10 to 30 per cent of the potent greenhouse gas methane that is entering the atmosphere is a gift to climate skeptics and the oil industry.
For years they have tried to argue that man-made emissions were not to blame. It is also a gift to those people who oppose the UN Kyoto protocol, because part of that agreement is the off-setting of carbon dioxide emissions with the planting of trees.
Watch this space – we will monitor what these groups have to say in
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
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