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)
Despite his big talk on climate, when it comes to fossil fuels, President Biden’s policies just build on previous expansion.
A slew of White House actions are undermining efforts to address climate change, and under Biden, the country is producing more energy from fossil fuels than it did under former President Donald Trump.
The science is clear: Building any new fossil fuel infrastructure is incompatible with a livable climate. Yet, while President Joe Biden touts the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, as the country’s biggest climate law ever, he’s glossing over all the ways his administration has advanced fossil fuels, including in the IRA.
A slew of White House actions are undermining efforts to address climate change. And under Biden, the country is producing more energy from fossil fuels than it did under former President Donald Trump. In 2022, the U.S. broke its record for most fossil fuels produced in a year. Worse, it’s on track to break that record for 2023.
We know that to stem the tide of climate chaos, we need to move off fossil fuels, period. Instead, the Biden administration has approved and supported several projects that will unleash carbon bombs on our climate and lock in decades of drilling, burning, and emitting.
Dŵr (Water) is a classic Welsh song by Huw Jones. I think that the backing vocals are Heather Jones.
Among Tory voters, 57% back the Government to run utilities and 29% prefer the private sector.
Even Tory voters think that key utilities such as water, rail and power networks should be nationalised, a new poll has found.
The poll, carried out by Ipsos Mori for the ipaper, found broad public support for nationalisation of key utilities, including among Tory voters.
68% of those asked favoured nationalisation of water, with 65% of respondents also saying that railways should be bought under public ownership. 63% said power networks should be publicly owned; and 60% supported a reversal of the privatisation of Royal Mail.
Among Tory voters, 57% back the Government to run utilities and 29% prefer the private sector.
It comes at a time when food and energy prices have been rising amid a cost of living crisis.
Omnisis also asked voters if Britain was right or wrong to leave the EU, with 59% saying we were wrong to leave versus 41% saying we were right.
The tide of public opinion continues to turn against Brexit, with the economy continuing to take a hit as a result of the decision to leave our nearest and biggest trading partner, and with even the likes of Nigel Farage admitting the decision to leave the EU has been a disaster.
A new opinion poll for YouGov puts support for re-joining the EU at 63%. The poll findings are similar to the results of another poll carried out by Omnisis last week, which found that 62% of people wanted the country to re-join the European Union, with 38% saying Britain should stay out.
Led by Donkeys poster quotes Nigel Farage “Brexit has failed”.
Omnisis also asked voters if Britain was right or wrong to leave the EU, with 59% saying we were wrong to leave versus 41% saying we were right.
“Unless he drastically changes course, Biden’s legacy will forever be marred by his failure to directly address fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis,” said one campaigner.
Climate campaigners on Tuesday responded to U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech touting the clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act on the eve of its first anniversary by condemning his administration’s fossil fuel expansion and calling on him to declare a climate emergency.
Biden has repeatedly hailed the $368 billion in clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) while claiming last week that he has “practically” declared a climate emergency. On Tuesday, the president delivered his remarks at Ingeteam, a company that makes wind turbine systems and says it plans to manufacture electric vehicle charging stations and hire 100 workers.
“This is happening across the state,” Biden asserted. “It is a direct result of the clean energy investments I signed into law a year ago. Folks, as I’ve said for a long time, when I think climate, I think jobs.”
Tune in as I deliver remarks on how Bidenomics is Investing in America to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. https://t.co/dcsbgitKAt
Progressive critics pushed back against the president’s claims.
“President Biden can talk until he’s blue in the face about investments in clean energy, but as long as he continues to approve massive new fossil fuel projects throughout the country, we keep moving backward on the path to a livable climate future,” Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. “No amount of investment in wind turbines, solar panels, or faulty carbon capture schemes will protect our environment or stabilize our climate if we simultaneously extract and burn more and more oil and gas.”
“The Alaska Willow drilling project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a plethora of new LNG export terminals—these are among the features of Biden’s energy legacy that will doom us to climate catastrophe if he doesn’t change course now,” Hauter continued. “Meanwhile, President Biden’s massive investments in unproven, impossibly expensive carbon capture schemes serve only to allow the fossil fuel industry to keep doing what it does best—drill, frack, pump, and pollute—under the premise that a mysterious, magical technology will somehow clean it all up.”
“These faulty initiatives are sucking away precious time and money that could otherwise be spent on legitimate clean energy projects like wind, solar, and building efficiency,” she added.
It’s been almost one year since the Inflation Reduction Act passed Congress, but @POTUS and his administration aren’t acknowledging how they’ve advanced fossil fuels – even in the IRA. We need to move off fossil fuels NOW to truly stop climate chaos.
Oil Change International U.S. campaign manager Allie Rosenbluth called the IRA “one of the biggest handouts to the fossil fuel industry in U.S. history.”
“With tens of billions of dollars in giveaways for the oil and gas industry, provisions expanding fossil fuel leasing, and incentives for dangerous and unproven technologies designed to keep the fossil fuel industry in business like carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and direct air capture, this law will not accomplish what we need to have a livable future.”
“Unless he drastically changes course, Biden’s legacy will forever be marred by his failure to directly address fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis,” Rosenbluth added.
President Biden @potus please watch this video. It makes the case for a climate emergency declaration with concision and conviction @FightFossilshttps://t.co/em7PrzsA0M
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said in a statement that “one year after President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the need is more urgent than ever for him to declare a climate emergency, phase out fossil fuels, and fast-track distributed energy systems.”
CBD energy justice director Jean Su argued that “it’s clear that the IRA isn’t enough.”
“This summer has been an absolute horror show of the catastrophic consequences of burning fossil fuels. President Biden needs to run, not walk, away from the climate catastrophe of fossil fuels,” she asserted. “Every time his administration approves another oil or gas project, it pushes us toward a more hellish future.”
“Biden should use all his executive powers to speed the end of the fossil fuel era, because every tenth of a degree matters,” Su added. “Unless he does, these projects will perpetuate human suffering, environmental racism, and wildlife extinction. They’ll just keep on cooking the planet.”
March to End Fossil Fuels. Sept 17th. NYC. Please join us to call on our leaders to step up or step aside. https://t.co/kwKD6UYdwj
A spoof ad of Sunak shaking oil-soaked handPhoto: Fossil Free London
PARODY adverts mocking Rishi Sunak for giving public money to oil giants have appeared across London’s bus stops.
The Prime Minister is shown shaking an oil-soaked hand next to a Conservative logo with the words: “A helping hand for those in need: £3.75 billion public money to oil company Equinor if Rosebank oil field goes ahead.”
The spoof ads have been spotted in Hackney, Southwark and Tower Hamlets so far, and come after Fossil Free London campaigners last week delivered giant gifts to the Norwegian embassy to represent the £3.75bn tax breaks developers of the North Sea’s Rosebank field could receive.
Norway’s state-backed oil and gas giant Equinor would be among the firms set to profit while the taxpayer picks up almost all the costs of the development.
Earlier this month Mr Sunak claimed a planned expansion of oil and gas drilling in the North Sea was “entirely consistent” with the government’s goal to reach net zero by 2050.
