Hundreds of governments and thousands of stakeholders will meet at the Rio+20 Conference in Brazil this month to chart a future for the health of the planet, our human family and economies worldwide. The question is whether that future will include continuing public fossil fuel subsidies, which could climb to a staggering US$775 billion to an estimated US$1 trillion … Read More
clean energy future
IEA’s “golden rules for the golden age of gas”
The respected chief economist of the IEA, Fatih Birol, has warned that the world will become increasingly reliant on shale gas and oil from Iraq in the coming decades. In part to help stave off the growing public backlash against shale gas, the IEA is preparing, along with a number of governments, a set of “best … Read More
US Oil Boom “Increases Energy Vulnerability”
As the International Energy Agency warns that world oil markets face a “bumpy ride” in the months ahead, Barack Obama has being trying to defend his energy policies. His defence comes at a time when rising gas and energy production prices look increasingly likely to be become a key election issue in November, with his … Read More
“The door is closing”
We are used to dire warnings about climate change. But they do not often come from the IEA, the world’s energy watch-dog. And for such a conservative body, they do not often sound this dire. Such is our predicted catastrophic path of fossil fuel dependence, that over the next five years the last chance of … Read More
Congress is “Most Anti-Green” in History
OK there is only one story in town this week in Washington. With just hours to go the House of Representatives has just passed a last minute bill to raise the US borrowing limit, preventing the markets free-falling. The Senate is now expected to follow suit. The immediate reaction from the Democrats is anger that … Read More
World Bank Executives: Stop Defending Dirty Energy for the Poor
The World Bank Group, perhaps the best-known publicly-funded international development institution, is pitched in an important battle over the future of its energy lending. Unfortunately, if some Bank executives have their way, the new Energy Strategy will become a blueprint for straddling the world’s poorest nations and people with dangerous and polluting energy. That’s because … Read More
Join this Friday’s Rally at the World Bank: Support Clean Energy for the Poor
We need your help this Friday to call on the World Bank Group to direct its energy lending to provide healthy, clean energy access to the world’s poor. Currently, 1.4 billion people mostly in rural Asia and Africa are without access to electricity. The World Bank says that alleviating this energy poverty is one of … Read More
Obama and energy security: another missed opportunity
The president presented some encouraging words at Georgetown University today when he spoke about the urgent need to address America’s energy security. As he so often does, he correctly identified the problem the nation faces in continuing to rely on dirty forms of energy that pollute and cause climate change and particularly on oil, the … Read More
Canadian Pipedream
Why Canadian oil does not make America secure Political turmoil in the Middle East once again exposes America’s dependence on oil and its vulnerability to global price spikes. On Capitol Hill, Big Oil’s political lackeys are stepping up their campaign for supply solutions and the current must-have item on their list is the Keystone XL … Read More
Push Back Against the Climate Deniers and End Fossil Fuel Subsidies
At the same time it appears that big oil and coal climate denial campaigns are successfully stifling climate action in Congress and the Obama Administration, a group of America’s top scientists stepped up to the plate on Tuesday and called on House and Senate leaders to “take a fresh look at climate change.” And none … Read More