Shell abandons 2035 emissions target and weakens 2030 goal && Shell boss got £8m pay package in first year

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Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)

https://www.carbonbrief.org/shell-abandons-2035-emissions-target-and-weakens-2030-goal/

Shell has abandoned a key climate target for 2035 and weakened another goal for 2030, according to its latest “energy transition strategy”.

The oil major has “updated” its target to cut the total “net carbon intensity” of all the energy products it sells to customers – the emissions per unit of energy – by 20% between 2016 and 2030. The reduction is now set at between 15-20%.

Within Shell’s strategy, chief executive, Wael Sawan, writes that this change reflects “a strategic shift” to focus less on selling electricity, including renewable power.

Instead, the company says investment in oil and gas “will be needed” due to sustained demand for fossil fuels. It emphasises the importance of liquified natural gas (LNG) as “critical” for the energy transition and says it will grow its LNG business by up to 30% by 2030. 

This amounts to a bet against the world meeting its climate goals, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) and others concluding no new oil-and-gas investment is needed on a pathway to 1.5C – and warning against the risk of “overinvestment”.

Elsewhere in the report, Shell notes that it has “chosen to retire [its] 2035 target of a 45% reduction in net carbon intensity” due to “uncertainty in the pace of change in the energy transition”.

Both goals were intended as stepping stones on the company’s journey towards net-zero emissions by 2050, a goal set by the previous chief executive, Ben van Beurden, in 2020.

The weakening of climate goals from Shell, the world’s second-largest investor-owned oil-and-gas company, comes after BP scaled back its ambitions last year.

Shell boss got £8m pay package in first year

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nm8r8787ko

Shell’s new boss received a pay package of almost £8m in his first year in the role, the energy giant has revealed.

Detail of the pay emerged as Shell watered down one of its carbon reduction targets.

Wael Sawan was paid a total of £7.94m, including bonuses, although that was below the £9.7m received by his predecessor, Ben van Beurden, in 2022.

The size of the pay package came under fire from pressure groups.

Jonathan Noronha-Gant, senior fossil fuels campaigner at Global Witness, said the amount was “a bitter pill to swallow for the millions of workers living with the high costs of energy”.

Shell also announced that it planned to reduce the “net carbon intensity” of the energy it sells by 15-20% by 2030, compared with a previous target of 20%.

It also dropped its plan to reduce net carbon intensity by 45% by 2035.

Continue ReadingShell abandons 2035 emissions target and weakens 2030 goal && Shell boss got £8m pay package in first year

Most US Voters Agree: Make Big Oil Pay for Climate Damage

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS at Common Dreams shared under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Two-thirds of U.S. voters surveyed by Data for Progress support making fossil fuel companies pay for the damage their products cause to the climate.  (Photo: rmitsch/Getty Images)

“Voters resoundingly endorse fossil fuel companies contributing their fair share to address a crisis they helped manufacture and still refuse to help fix,” said one campaigner.

As yet another United Nations Climate Change Conference winds down without a meaningful agreement on phasing out fossil fuels, polling released Tuesday by Data for Progress revealed strong bipartisan support among U.S. voters for legislation forcing oil and gas companies to pay for their role in fueling the planetary emergency.

The survey of 1,279 U.S. voters, conducted November 3-6, found that around two-thirds of all likely voters support such legislation, a +40-point net margin. Among Democrats, support for the proposed bill is 88%, while 61% of Independent and 46% of Republicans either strongly or somewhat back the proposal.

“In a resounding call for accountability, two-thirds of the American people support legislation demanding industry titans like Exxon and Shell shoulder their fair share of the climate damages inflicted by fossil fuels.”

Asked if they were more or less likely to support elected officials who prioritize making Big Oil pay for its climate pollution, 64% of overall respondents, 89% of Democrats, and 58% of Independents answered “more likely.” Republicans were the only group whose members were less likely to back officials who would make oil and gas companies pay for their pollution.

“In a resounding call for accountability, two-thirds of the American people support legislation demanding industry titans like Exxon and Shell shoulder their fair share of the climate damages inflicted by fossil fuels,” Fossil Free Media communications director Cassidy DiPaola said in a statement.

“With COP spotlighting the towering price tag of climate change, voters resoundingly endorse fossil fuel companies contributing their fair share to address a crisis they helped manufacture and still refuse to help fix,” she added, referencing the U.N. summit.

The poll follows the September launch of the “Make Polluters Pay” campaign, a public relations blitz meant to drum up public support for suing fossil fuel corporations—which knew that their products caused climate change decades before publicly saying so.

That month, California joined dozens of states and municipalities that have targeted fossil fuel giants in court,suing five fossil fuel giants—ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron—over their decadeslong effort to deceive the public about their products’ role in fueling global heating.

The new survey’s findings also came as so-called “loss and damage”—the harm caused by anthropogenic climate change—features prominently at COP28. However, climate campaigners were once again disappointed as the United States and other top polluters failed to make meaningful contributions to the fund.

The rich nations most responsible for the climate catastrophe pledged just $700 million between them, the equivalent of under 0.2% of the irreversible losses Global South countries suffer each year during the worsening planetary crisis. The United States pledged a paltry $17.5 million.

“Every year, we travel across oceans to come to these negotiations and we continue to get only drops of ambition,” Drue Slatter, a Fijian climate campaigner attending COP28, wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday by Common Dreams.

“Facing the catastrophic effects of extreme weather at home and watching the slow progress of the negotiations, it was hard not to be pessimistic before we even arrived at COP28,” Slatter added. “But the point is that we can’t afford not to be here, we can’t afford to stop fighting because what’s at stake is our very survival.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS at Common Dreams shared under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingMost US Voters Agree: Make Big Oil Pay for Climate Damage

Five Key Narratives to Watch For at COP28

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Original article republished from DeSmog.

Here’s DeSmog’s take on what to expect at this year’s climate summit, from Big Oil’s influence, to a new Big Ag agenda, to promotion of sketchy solutions that would keep oil and gas burning for decades to come.

The United Arab Emirates’ pavilion at COP27. Credit: Adam Barnett

The annual United Nations climate negotiations are just a week away. Known as COP28 — since it’s the 28th year of the “conference of the parties” to the United Nations climate agreement — it will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai from November 30 through December 12. 

COP28 will be especially significant, as it will feature the first-ever “global stocktake,” of how much progress — or lack thereof — countries and other stakeholders have made toward meeting the goal established in 2015’s Paris Agreement of limiting warming to “well below” 2º degrees Celsius. 

Negotiators at COP28 will also aim to make progress on key climate issues including loss and damage finance, a just energy transition, and closing the emissions gap.

As the climate crisis accelerates, so, too, do efforts by the fossil fuel industry to derail steep reductions in carbon pollution by mid-century, in part by promoting false solutions. Below, we’ve rounded up recent coverage to help you make sense of the key denial and greenwashing narratives that will be front and center during the event.

A Big Presence from Big Oil

After all, this is the first annual climate conference with a Big Oil exec at the top: COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber

Al Jaber, the person leading these global climate negotiations, is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). He has openly called for fossil fuel companies’ “help to drive the solutions,” and advocated overcoming “the hurdles to scale up and commercialize hydrogen and carbon capture technologies” — two so-far unproven climate solutions being heavily promoted by the fossil fuel industry. A big presence from Big Oil would be in line with trends at the past two summits: 636 fossil fuel lobbyists registered to attend last year’s conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, while 503 registered for 2021’s gathering in Glasgow.

Dive deeper with our Climate Disinformation Database profile of Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, our coverage of his appointment as COP28 president, and our reporting last year on fossil fuel lobbyists at COP27.

An Industry Push for CCS

The fossil fuel industry will paint carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a climate solution during this year’s conference. Critics argue it is anything but. 

Of the 32 commercial CCS facilities operating worldwide, 22 use most, or all, of their captured carbon dioxide (CO2) to pump more oil out of depleted wells. Burning that oil creates far more CO2 than what is captured. 

DeSmog recently analyzed 12 large-scale CCS projects around the world and found countless missed carbon capture targets, as well as cost overruns, with taxpayers picking up the tab via billions of dollars in subsidies. Despite these failures, Big Oil publicly champions CCS and pushes projects over communities’ objections. Privately, the industry shares critics’ concerns.

With the Biden administration channeling billions of dollars into investments and tax credits for CCS, the United States is likely to be a key CCS supporter at the conference.

Dive deeper with our explainer on how CCS is used for “enhanced oil recovery,” our investigation into CCS’s biggest fails, hear what Big Oil is saying about CCS in private.

Greenwashing by Big Agriculture

This year’s climate conference is coming on the heels of the world’s hottest year, with devastating floods around the world affecting the global food supply, and more than 330 million people worldwide facing famine. So COP28 leaders have released a four-point “food and agriculture” agenda for the summit that calls for governments and industry to collaborate on finding new solutions to climate change–driven food insecurity. 

However, some of the biggest companies in agribusiness, are using greenwashing to shift the debate away from meaningful action. DeSmog has debunked six concepts that the world’s largest food and farming companies will be co-opting in hopes of swaying debates and discussions in  Dubai — including “regenerative agriculture,” “nature-based solutions,” and “climate neutrality.” Stay tuned for DeSmog’s coverage from Dubai — our team will be keeping a close eye on Big Ag.

Dive deeper with our coverage of how food systems are linked to fossil fuel consumption, investigations into the meat and dairy groups downplaying their industries’ climate impacts, and the ties between Big Ag and right-wing politicians in the EU.

PR Spin That Promotes Denial and Delay

Ever wonder how a top oil-producing nation like the United Arab Emirates earned hosting duties for this year’s climate summit, or why the chief of UAE’s state oil company ADNOC, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, has ascended to one of the top roles in global climate negotiations? Reporting by DeSmog revealed that from 2007 to 2009, Edelman, the largest public relations firm in the world, ran a campaign to bolster the UAE and Al Jaber’s green images. 

Advertising and PR agencies like Edelman have long burnished the public’s perceptions of fossil fuel interests, and are still creating advertising campaigns for big polluters that distract from and delay climate action — such as sponsored-content for a pesticides giant or leading climate communications while catering to Big Oil. Still, within the ad industry, pressure is mounting to stop working with fossil fuel clients. Some companies and organizations are even dropping ad and PR firms for taking on new fossil fuel industry accounts

Follow DeSmog’s coverage as we highlight the PR spin at COP28.

Dive deeper with our Climate Disinformation Database profiles of PR and ad firms EdelmanOgilvy, and FleishmanHillard, our investigation into Edelman’s campaign to burnish Al Jaber and the UAE’s green creds, and our coverage of the backlash to Havas winning Shell’s business.

Anticipate Disinformation 

Disinformation strategies and narratives will be on display throughout the summit — much as we reported during COP27, where fossil fuel-linked groups spent around $4 million on social media ads that spread false climate claims. 

The disinformation may flow thicker and faster than ever during COP28. As DeSmog has reported, over the past five years climate greenwashing has “gone through the roof,” as major polluters turn to greenwashing to avoid accountability for the climate crisis. In part, this may be a response to the increasing number of climate lawsuits and legal complaints against misleading climate claims. Attorneys general across the U.S. have charged fossil fuel companies with defrauding consumers by lying about the impacts of burning coal, oil, and gas — while activists and campaigners in Europe seek to hold Big Oil accountable under regulations against misleading advertising.

To understand disinformation tactics and where they come from, dig into DeSmog’s reporting about past greenwashing campaigns. We recently shone a light on the way the gas industry borrowed Big Tobacco’s tactics to promote doubt over the health effects of gas stoves. Or read our investigation into how corporate polluters and their political allies have been using the same rhetoric of delay for the past six decades when faced with the prospect of regulation.

Dive deeper with our column on why greenwashing works and how to fight it, our Q&A with Climate Investigations Center researcher Rebecca John, and our investigation into Shell’s knowledge of climate change.

Original article republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingFive Key Narratives to Watch For at COP28

Why California is Taking Big Oil to Court — and Why it Matters

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Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog.

The sweeping complaint details the fossil fuel industry’s coordinated campaign to deceive the public about the dangers of fossil fuels.

Canadian wildfire 2023
Canadian wildfire 2023

“This is a historic moment,” Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, told reporters on Sunday, as he stood alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom on the opening day of Climate Week NYC.  The pair of California leaders were there to discuss the lawsuit the state had recently filed against Big Oil on behalf of the people of California to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the effects of climate change.

While it is not the first to seek accountability from the fossil fuel industry for its role in fueling the climate crisis, California’s lawsuit stands out in several ways: The state has a reputation for leading on climate policy; it is on the frontlines of climate change; it is a producer of oil and gas; and it is, to date, the most politically and economically powerful state to sue Big Oil.

More than three dozen states and cities are suing oil, gas, and coal companies over their role in causing climate change. But California is the first fossil-fuel-producing state to do so. That sends a clear political message that the industry “is less powerful and trusted than before,” Nick Caleb, a climate and energy attorney with Breach Collective, told DeSmog. It may signal that fossil fuel companies do not have much of a future powering the state’s economy, Caleb said. 

California is facing major economic and humanitarian costs from the climate emergency. The state, with a population of nearly 40 million people, has racked up several billions of dollars in climate-related damages on top of the tragic costs to human lives. Some insurance companies are backing away from the state due to the outsized risks. 

“It’s incalculable in terms of the dollars, the lives lost, the funerals, and dead bodies in Paradise, California,” Newsom said on Sunday. In 2018, the Camp Fire decimated the northern California community and killed at least 85 people.

“We all know how California has suffered from climate impacts,” Christiana Figueres, one of the key architects of the Paris Agreement, told journalists at a Covering Climate Now conference at Columbia Journalism School in New York City on Thursday. She called California’s lawsuit “a major, major upgrade … in the liabilities and in the reach that climate litigation can have.” 

The lawsuit names five companies — ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips — and one lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute. It asserts that the companies knew about the climate risks associated with burning fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, yet underplayed them to the public, and it argues that the climate disasters and devastation California is experiencing could have been largely avoided or mitigated were it not for the lies and deceit of the fossil fuel industry. “California is in the throes of a climate crisis,” the case contends.  

The 135-page complaint, filed Friday in superior court in San Francisco, lays out the evidence of the alleged deception in great detail. Bonta called it the “most sweeping complaint thus far.”

“You cannot read it without crawling out of your skin,” Newsom added at Sunday’s press briefing.

Many of the details and revelations are known, but are worth recapping as they explain why major oil companies are facing similar lawsuits from so many  states and municipalities.

A Public Campaign of Deception

First, as the complaint notes, “Defendants have known about the potential warming effects of GHG emissions since as early as the 1950s.” Nuclear physicist Edward Teller warned the oil industry at an API event in 1959 that global warming might melt the polar ice caps and submerge coastal cities. 

In the late 1960s, as the complaint details, the Stanford Research Institute issued reports that accurately predicted the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in 2000. The reports, commissioned by API, further warned of the Antarctic ice cap melt, and explicitly connected CO2 rise to fossil fuel combustion. 

More warnings came from industry scientists in the 1970s, but these were not disseminated publicly. Instead, Exxon realized that legislation affecting its business could take shape and decided to closely monitor the science but not publicly acknowledge or act on it. “In 1979, API and its members, including the Fossil Fuel Defendants, convened a Task Force to monitor and share cutting-edge climate research among members of the oil industry,” the complaint explains. This close assessment of potential climate impacts and climate modeling continued into the 1980s. 

In 1988, an internal Shell report titled “The Greenhouse Effect” further pointed to fossil fuels as the cause of rising CO2 concentrations and warned of the devastating impacts on society.

The very real prospect of legislation and international action to combat climate change in the late 1980s and early 1990s, prompted a U-turn within the industry. The industry shifted tactics “from general research and internal discussion on climate change to a public campaign aimed at deceiving consumers and the public, including the inhabitants of California,” the complaint states. In publications and advertorials, the industry directly contradicted what it had known for decades about the role of fossil fuels in increasing CO2 emissions and temperature rise. During this time the Global Climate Coalition actively worked to undermine the public’s understanding of climate science and even to manipulate the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s climate science body.

Exxon and other oil majors also funded “fringe scientists” to peddle their views and  funded dozens of think tanks and front groups to promote climate denial. The complaint calls out a few of these groups, including: the Heritage FoundationHeartland InstituteCompetitive Enterprise InstituteFrontiers of Freedom, and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

A Conspiracy to “Conceal and Misrepresent”

The California lawsuit does not bring racketeering charges as some recent climate accountability lawsuits have. It does, however, refer to a conspiracy. According to the complaint, the defendants, through their trade associations and front groups like the Global Climate Coalition, “conspired to conceal and misrepresent the known dangers of burning fossil fuels.” While conspiracy is not charged, the lawsuit references it “for the purposes of establishing that California state court is the correct jurisdiction and venue for this case,” Caleb explained. 

“Although the Fossil Fuel Defendants were competitors in the marketplace, they combined and collaborated with each other and with API on this public campaign to misdirect and stifle public knowledge in order to increase sales and protect profits,” the complaint argues. 

The industry’s alleged deception delayed a transition to alternative and cleaner forms of energy and enabled a much greater buildup of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than otherwise would have occurred, the lawsuit argues, adding: “Defendants could have chosen a different path.”

Ben Franta, head of the Climate Litigation Lab at Oxford University and one of the key researchers to uncover evidence of the industry’s early climate change awareness and subsequent efforts to deceive, told DeSmog: “The bottom line is that major fossil fuel companies knew decades ago that their own products, unless replaced with safe energy sources, would cause catastrophic damage in the 21st century. They concealed their knowledge and misled the public about the reality, seriousness, cause, and solutions to the problem in order to keep selling fossil fuels and increase industry profits.” 

API was instrumental to the execution of this plan. The trade association “played a key role in creating climate denialist organizations such as the Global Climate Coalition,” Franta said. 

In response, API called California’s lawsuit part of an “ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits” against the oil and gas industry. 

The Western States Petroleum Association, the main industry lobby for the western region including California, is not a named defendant in the complaint. Franta said API and WSPA have “both played key roles in deceiving the public about climate change and worsening climate damages,” but that “much more research to date has been conducted on API.” 

Nevertheless, “their contributions to climate change are significant and actionable under California law,” Caleb told DeSmog, adding that WSPA “deserves to be held accountable” for greenwashing and deceptive conduct. WSPA has been named as a defendant in a climate lawsuit filed in June by Multnomah County, Oregon, the first such case to do so.  

Industry’s Misleading Behavior Has “Not Stopped”

The complaint says the companies’ “efforts to mislead the public about climate change have not stopped.” In recent years, the oil and gas industry has shifted to prolific greenwashing. It portrays its products as “cleaner” or “low carbon,” and claims the industry is driving climate solutions.

“Just as tobacco companies promoted ‘low-tar’ and ‘light’ cigarettes … so too do Defendants peddle ‘low-carbon’ and ‘emissions-reducing’ fossil fuel products,” the complaint notes.

Yet Big Oil is now retreating on its meager climate commitments and doubling down on oil and gas production, even after raking in record profits in 2022. For instance, in June, Shell announced it would not follow through on its earlier promise to gradually decrease oil production through 2030.

“The fact that they’re still at it, rolling back ambition in real time … is shameful,” Newsom said on Sunday.

“They need to be held accountable. They need to pay for the damage that they’ve caused. They knew, they knew for years,” Bonta added. 

In an emailed statement, a Shell spokesperson said the company’s “position on climate change has been a matter of public record for decades”, adding: “We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change.”

ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lawsuit Opens the “Floodgates”

Newsom and Bonta made clear on Sunday that they’re hoping the state’s decision to sue Big Oil could therefore encourage other jurisdictions to do the same. California’s actions on climate have often broken new ground and inspired other states to follow suit — a phenomenon is called the “California effect.” For example, the state has set  increasingly stringent vehicle tailpipe emissions standards, implemented the country’s first economy-wide cap-and-trade program, and has recently passed a first-in-the-nation law requiring large companies to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, 

Climate lawyers and activists called California’s move to sue Big Oil “historic” and “decisive.”

“The California lawsuit is the most significant litigation against the industry that’s happened yet,” said Steven Donziger, an environmental and human rights attorney who successfully sued Chevron and faced retaliation for it. “All of these lawsuits together collectively can really force the phaseout of the industry. They’re important.”

“California’s lawsuit provides major momentum in the race to protect a livable planet,” Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in an emailed statement. “This case opens a new avenue for California to lead the nation in ending deadly fossil fuels.”

Geoffrey Supran, associate professor of environmental science and policy and director of the Climate Accountability Lab at University of Miami, noted that California “is a bellwether for U.S. environmental action,” and that momentum to hold Big Oil accountable through litigation has been mounting for several years.

“Now that the fifth largest economy in the world has waded in, the floodgates are truly open,” he said.

As a state that still produces oil and gas, however, some say California is still not moving quickly enough to sever ties with the industry it is now suing. Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, said that California “can do a lot more, faster,” noting the state continues to permit fossil gas usage in buildings, has not banned oil and gas drilling, and plans to phase out new gasoline-powered vehicles only by 2035, which is “five years after we need to transition 80 percent of the world away from fossil fuels.”  

Campaign Demands “Polluters Pay”

A new activist campaign called “Make Polluters Pay,” which launched Monday in New York City, with a Times Square billboard and a six-figure digital ad buy and online petition, is supporting California’s call for more climate accountability lawsuits.

The “Make Polluters Pay” campaign billboard in New York’s Time Square on September 18, 2023. Credit: Jamie Henn, Fossil Free Media
The “Make Polluters Pay” campaign billboard in New York’s Time Square on September 18, 2023. Credit: Jamie Henn, Fossil Free Media

“Make Polluters Pay will be the first big public-facing campaign to build support for these climate lawsuits and the broader effort to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the damage they are doing to our health, climate and communities,” Jamie Henn, founder of Fossil Free Media, told DeSmog.

“I think California’s lawsuit is going to turn these climate liability cases into a serious movement that not only excites environmental lawyers, but the public writ large,” he added. “A few hundred million Americans experienced the brutal heat waves and other climate disasters this summer and they’re looking for someone to hold responsible. And when it comes to climate destruction, the answer is clear: it’s Big Oil.”  

Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingWhy California is Taking Big Oil to Court — and Why it Matters

Exxon Still Has Its Foot on the Accelerator of the Climate Emergency

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A billboard in Austin, Texas, recognises and acknowledges Big Oil as causing climate crisis. (Image: Fossil Free Media)
A billboard in Austin, Texas, recognises and acknowledges Big Oil as causing climate crisis. (Image: Fossil Free Media)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/exxon-climate-emergency

If one oil company is synonymous with funding decades of climate denial, it is Exxon. For decades, the oil giant copied the deadly playbook of Big Tobacco of sowing doubt about the evidence and delaying action.

The company funded a covert network of foot soldiers to deny evidence, delay action, and divert away from the industry. Between the late ’90s and 2005, the oil giant donated $16 million to numerous right-wing and libertarian think tanks to manufacture uncertainty about climate change.

The oil company spread such confusion and obfuscation despite knowing for decades that fossil fuels would cause global warming. The company knew by the ’60s that climate change could have catastrophic consequences. For example, a report for the American Petroleum Institute, on which Exxon is a prominent member, warned of the dangers of climate change and the risks to sea level rise if Antarctic glaciers melted.

We must keep trying to hold the companies to account for their failure to act, for their failure to future generations.

Nine years later, in 1977, Exxon’s leaders were told directly by a senior company scientist, James F. Black, about the looming climate crisis. “In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels,” he told Exxon’s Management Committee.

Decades after the company was first warned about climate change, in October 1997, the head of Exxon at the time, Lee “iron ass” Raymond, delivered a speech to the Fifteenth World Petroleum Congress in China.

As Steve Coll recalls in his book Private Empire, Raymond “devoted 33 paragraphs of his 78-paragraph speech to the argument that evidence about manmade climate change was an illusion.”

Months later, Exxon helped create a task force working with the American Petroleum Institute: “Victory will be achieved when average citizens understand (recognize) uncertainties in climate science” and when public “recognition of uncertainty becomes part of ‘unconventional wisdom.’” Where Big Tobacco led, Exxon followed with devastating consequences.

In 2006, nearly three decades after Exxon was first warned about climate change, the British Royal Society wrote to Exxon asking the company to stop funding organizations that feature information “on their websites that misrepresented the science of climate change, by outright denial of the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving climate change, or by overstating the amount and significance of uncertainty in knowledge or by conveying a misleading impression of the potential impacts of anthropogenic climate change.”

When Raymond retired, the Independent newspaper ran a front-page headline the following year: “The man who sold the planet.” The paper called Exxon the “Darth Vader of global warming” for its “denial that carbon emissions cause climate change.”

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/exxon-climate-emergency

Continue ReadingExxon Still Has Its Foot on the Accelerator of the Climate Emergency

US Billboard Campaign Blasts Fossil Fuel Giants for Causing Extreme Heat

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A billboard in Austin, Texas shows a U.S. map with high temperatures across the nation.
 (Photo: Fossil Free Media)

Original article by ULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“From Alaska to Maui, our communities are struggling to survive the rapidly worsening impacts of the climate crisis, all the while, Big Oil is raking in billions at our expense.”

As about 111 million people in nearly two dozen states continued to face heat advisories, with temperatures reaching as high at 115°F in some cities, the nonprofit media lab Fossil Free Media unveiled a multicity campaign with one simple goal: ensuring that all Americans understand that the intense heatwaves across much of the country this summer have not been a natural phenomenon, but the result of continued fossil fuel extraction.

Starting Thursday drivers along stretches of highway in Phoenix, Arizona; Austin, Texas; and Fresno, California will pass by prominent billboards displaying a map of record-breaking temperatures that have been recorded across the U.S. this summer.

Fresno drivers will be reminded of a 109°F day in their city while those in Phoenix will see 117°F plastered over their hometown on the map, accompanied by the words, “Brought to you by Big Oil” and ThankYouBigOil.com.

That website redirects to Fossil Free Media’s (FFM) Stop the Oil Profiteering (STOP) project, where visitors can read about the estimated cost of climate-related disasters such as hurricanes, extreme heat, and wildfires—over $600 billion from 2016-20 alone—and the 5,000 people killed by such events in that same time period.

“The fossil fuel industry has known for decades that their products are fueling climate change and extreme weather, yet they have failed to act,” reads the website. “Instead, major oil and gas companies continue to invest billions into new projects that lock in decades more fossil fuel extraction while our communities take the heat… literally.”

Jamie Henn, director of the organization, said on social media that the public “needs to understand that this summer’s brutal heatwave was brought to you by Big Oil.”

The World Weather Attribution said last month that the heatwaves experienced by people across the U.S. and Europe in July would have been “virtually impossible” without the climate crisis, which scientists have for years said is being fueled by heat-trapping emissions from oil, gas, and coal extraction.

The organization also reported this week that wildfires in eastern Canada in recent weeks were made twice as likely by the climate emergency, which as STOP said, has created “tinderbox conditions” by making droughts longer and more intense.

“From Alaska to Maui, our communities are struggling to survive the rapidly worsening impacts of the climate crisis, all the while, Big Oil is raking in billions at our expense,” said Cassidy DiPaola, spokesperson for FFM and STOP. “There’s no denying that this summer’s brutal heatwaves are being fueled by the same Big Oil companies who are spreading climate disinformation and blocking much needed climate progress.”

More than 100 people in the U.S. have died of heat-related causes so far this year, and weather experts have continued to report high temperatures throughout August after July set a world record for the hottest month in recorded history.

Jennifer Falcon, a resident of Austin, told FFM that the climate crisis has emerged as an economic justice issue in her community as Texas broke its all-time record for power consumption last month, with people across the state struggling to stay cool.

“Texans are paying 800% more to cool their homes during the extreme heat that blankets our state,” she said. “This means choosing between food on the table or cooling your home to mitigate health impacts from the sweltering heat while Big Oil profits.”

As millions of people in the U.S. faced sweltering temperatures this summer—raising the risk of heat-related illness and even severe contact burns—ExxonMobil reported $7.9 billion in profits, its second-highest profit margin for a second quarter in over a decade.

Along with the billboards, STOP unveiled an ad showcasing the Big Oil’s link to the climate extremes Americans are increasingly at risk of facing.

“Record heatwaves? You can thank Big Oil for that,” said STOP. “Deadly wildfires? Yep, that’s Big Oil. Catastrophic storms? Smog-covered cities? You guessed it—Big Oil.”

The group is one of several scheduled to lead a March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City on September 17, with the rally being held as the United Nations holds a Climate Ambition Summit.

Aimed at pressuring U.S. President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, Fossil Free Media said the march is expected to be “the largest climate action since before the pandemic.”

Original article by ULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingUS Billboard Campaign Blasts Fossil Fuel Giants for Causing Extreme Heat

Congressional Dems Request DOJ Investigation into Big Oil’s Climate Deception

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Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog.

U.S. Department of Justice in Washington DC. Credit: Scott (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Citing “new evidence” of Big Oil firms’ advanced knowledge of climate risks and their actions to publicly conceal these risks, Democratic members of Congress are renewing calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate carbon majors for potential violations of federal law.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, the 20 congressional signatories, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), compare Big Oil’s deceptive conduct to that of Big Tobacco. In 2006, major tobacco firms were convicted of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in litigation brought by the DOJ. The letter requests that the DOJ now open an investigation into ExxonMobil, Shell, and other oil majors to “determine whether they violated RICO, consumer protection, truth in advertising, public health, or other laws.”

The call for a federal investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s alleged climate deception follows new revelations further showing that Big Oil knew about the climate consequences of its products, yet actively worked to disseminate climate denial and block policy responses to protect profits.

As DeSmog reported in an investigation published March 31, oil major Shell sponsored climate research in the 1970s — years earlier than previously thought. Despite the stark warnings for society issued in internal reports, the company backed a series of industry publications that downplayed climate risks, emphasized uncertainties in climate science, and called for more fossil fuel use, particularly coal. The investigation was based on more than 200 documents uncovered and compiled by Dutch scholar and activist Vatan Hüzeir.   

One of those documents, an internal 1989 Shell scenarios report, discussed the potential for an unprecedented climate refugee crisis with global temperatures rising considerably beyond 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). The report warned: “Civilisation [sic] could prove a fragile thing.”

The congressional letter to DOJ cites this and several other Shell documents from the investigation, stating: “Despite these warnings, Shell continued to publicly promote the use of fossil fuels and participate in trade associations and other groups that pushed climate denial and opposed solutions.” As DeSmog’s reporting noted, Shell engaged in lobbying and trade associations in the 1990s and 2000s that did just that, such as the Global Climate Coalition and the American Petroleum Institute.     

The letter also points to two peer-reviewed studies indicating that Big Oil deceived and continues to deceive the public. One, published in January in the journal Science by researchers Geoffrey Supran, Stefan Rahmstorf, and Naomi Oreskes, demonstrated that Exxon’s climate modeling and global warming projections were exceptionally accurate, and explained that despite this skillful scientific understanding, the company’s public statements contradicted its internal knowledge of the climate risk. The other study, by Mei Li, Gregory Trencher, and Jusen Asuka and published in 2022 in the journal PLOS ONE, showed the disconnect between oil majors’ rhetoric and pledges around the low carbon transition and their actual actions and investments that prioritize their fossil fuel business.

“The available evidence that these companies lied — and continue to lie — to the public about their central role in exacerbating the climate crisis demands further investigation,” the letter contends. It alleges that this conduct may “constitute the most consequential deception campaign in history, with potentially existential consequences for our planet.”

Shell and ExxonMobil knew their products fueled the #ClimateCrisis, but lied to the public to protect their profits.

READ: Our bicameral letter, co-led by @SenBlumenthal, urging @TheJusticeDept to investigate whether their actions violated federal law. https://t.co/pg3vP9jPgm— Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) July 25, 2023

The letter comes amidst alarming signals of climate breakdown across the country, from the hot-tub-temperature water off the Florida Keys, to the worst flooding Vermont has seen in nearly a century, to punishing heat in the Southwest sizzling sidewalks and causing severe burn injuries.

The Democratic members of Congress who signed onto the letter along with Sen. Blumenthal and Rep. Lieu include Reps. Katie Porter, Jared Huffman, Mark DeSaulnier, Kevin Mullin, and Nanette Díaz Barragán, all of California; Reps. Kim Schrier and Pramila Jayapal of Washington; Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida; Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan; Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri; and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Peter Welch of Vermont, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Alex Padilla of California also signed on.

Just two weeks ago, during an online climate discussion, several members of Congress including Ocasio-Cortez, Whitehouse, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, called on the Department of Justice to take legal action against Big Oil, with Sanders suggesting they pay the Attorney General a visit to make their request in person. He and other senators have previously written to the DOJ and President Joe Biden requesting an investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s climate deception.

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, which advocates for holding climate polluters accountable, said in an emailed statement that this deception amounts to the most “consequential fraud committed against the American people” ever. 

“Just as they did with the tobacco industry, the Department of Justice must exercise its unique power to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable and stop the lying,” Wiles said. “As long as Big Oil’s climate lies, both past and present, remain unchallenged by the DOJ, protecting the American public from the ravages of climate change will remain that much more difficult.”

Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingCongressional Dems Request DOJ Investigation into Big Oil’s Climate Deception

Just Stop Oil protest the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) at Total Energies HQ, Canary Wharf

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At around 8am four Just Stop Oil supporters entered the UK headquarters of Total Energies, the French multinational and majority shareholder in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) at Canary Wharf. They sprayed the interior of the lobby with black paint from fire extinguishers. Meanwhile outside, four further supporters sprayed the exterior of the building with orange paint and then sat down to await arrest. They were joined by a group of about 60 students who gave speeches describing the crimes perpetrated against the people of Uganda by the EACOP project. 

Experts have described the project as a ‘carbon bomb’, which would release over 379 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere- 25 times the combined annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania, the host nations. 

One of those taking action at Canary Wharf this morning, Solveig, 27, a Doctor of Philosophy student at the University of Oxford, said:

“I believe that it is my duty to support the brave protesters of Students against EACOP, who are standing up to Total Energies as it destroys the lives of people for profit. The extractive colonialism executed by Total is not only making 100,000 people homeless, but it will exacerbate climate breakdown globally. I wish we could stop these atrocities through peaceful and quiet protest, but we can’t. This is why I have to stand up to Total and push for the de-funding of EACOP.”

In October, a group of over 50 Ugandan university students were brutalised after marching to deliver a petition on the pipeline to the European Union Embassy in Kampala. Nine students were imprisoned and are currently facing trial on a charge of common nuisance.

The pipeline runs 900 miles from a biodiverse national park in Uganda, to a port in Tanzania. The project could lead to the displacement of over 100,000 people and outrage has been sparked at the multitude of human rights abuses being imposed on those in the path of construction. The EACOP pipeline will cut across several ecosystems, including forests, wetlands and rivers, displacing wildlife and destroying vital habitats that support rich biodiversity. The main backers of the multibillion dollar project are Total Energies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

[from a JSO press release]

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil protest the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) at Total Energies HQ, Canary Wharf

Church of England divests from fossil fuels

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Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Image: Roger Harris, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.politico.eu/article/jesus-vs-big-oil-church-of-england-divests/

The Church of England is selling all its remaining oil and gas investments, saying that “not nearly enough” progress had been made by fossil fuel companies in transitioning to net zero.

The decision by the Church Commissioners for England, which manages the Anglican church’s £10.3 billion endowment fund, cuts off investments in oil majors including Shell, BP and Total.

It will also see the church divest from all other companies involved in oil and gas production unless they are in “genuine alignment” with Paris Agreement goals to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the Commissioners said.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the climate crisis “threatens the planet we live on, and people around the world who Jesus Christ calls us to love as our neighbors.”

“It is our duty to protect God’s creation, and energy companies have a special responsibility to help us achieve the just transition to the low carbon economy we need,” he added.

https://www.politico.eu/article/jesus-vs-big-oil-church-of-england-divests/

Continue ReadingChurch of England divests from fossil fuels

Net-zero banks show little sign of slowing down fossil fuel financing

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https://www.energymonitor.ai/finance/banking/net-zero-banks-show-little-sign-of-slowing-down-fossil-fuel-financing/

A criticism often levelled at Mark Carney’s Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero initiative (GFANZ) and in particular its banking arm, the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), is that member banks are not required to set firm policies limiting fossil fuel investment.

New figures published by NGO the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) in its annual ‘Banking on Climate Chaos’ report reveal that the world’s 60 largest banks by asset size, the majority (49) of which have made net-zero commitments, have invested $5.5trn dollars in the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement was signed seven years ago. 

This new data, which records banks’ lending, debt underwriting and equity capital market activities, adjusting each transaction according to how much exposure the borrower or issuer has to a specific sector, shows that in 2022 alone, the 60 banks provided $673bn to more than 3,000 companies engaged in fossil fuel activities, including $150bn specifically to the top 100 companies expanding fossil fuels. 

The total sum for 2022 represents a 9% decrease compared with 2021 financing, although RAN’s report dismisses the idea that this reduction indicates “a positive, long-term trend”. This is because a more significant trend observed over the past year, given the current context of “rising interest rates, a strong dollar, and wartime profits”, is that several large oil majors that often account for a significant share of bank loans no longer need banks’ support following a year of bumper profits

https://www.energymonitor.ai/finance/banking/net-zero-banks-show-little-sign-of-slowing-down-fossil-fuel-financing/

Continue ReadingNet-zero banks show little sign of slowing down fossil fuel financing