… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: Climate Crisis

  • The world no longer needs new fossil fuels – and the UK could lead the way in making them taboo

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    Greg Muttitt, UCL; Fergus Green, UCL, and Steve Pye, UCL

    North Sea oil and gas has become a battleground issue in the UK general election.

    The Labour party’s manifesto promises an end to issuing new licenses for finding oil and gas. The Conservative party meanwhile proposes a law that would require the next government to hold a licensing round every year.

    Our recent study found that new fossil fuels are not needed, and that stopping the extraction of new coal, oil and gas is among the best ways to tackle the climate crisis.

    Scientific assessments tell us that global warming above 1.5°C will mean escalating danger to the environment, human health and the economy. We found that, in a world that limits warming to 1.5°C, remaining global demand for fossil fuels could be met by assets that have already been built.

    This means that Labour’s plans do not go far enough. Even under existing licenses, new oil and gas fields need not be opened, nor new platforms and pipelines built.

    Surplus to requirements

    Our research confirms an earlier finding of policy experts at the International Energy Agency (IEA): that no new fields are needed to meet energy demand as the world attempts to achieve net zero emissions. However, our analysis goes further by demonstrating that no new fossil-fuelled power stations are needed either.

    If governments stop new projects, the production and consumption of fossil fuel will gradually decline over coming decades as existing assets reach the end of their lifespans. This gradual transition will give time to plan the process, to protect and create jobs and to build solar and wind farms that meet energy demand as fossil fuels are phased out.

    A seaman working on an offshore rig.
    Winding down the fossil fuel industry should allow workers time to retrain.
    Arild Lilleboe/Shutterstock

    A stop to new fossil fuel projects is essential to “transitioning away” from coal, oil and gas, which is what governments agreed to do in December 2023 at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. This is a necessary commitment, but since it is expressed as a vague and collective goal with an indeterminate end point, it is easy for governments to pay lip service to it while maintaining business-as-usual.

    The IEA recently reported that global investment in fossil fuels has increased every year since 2020, even as governments announced net zero emissions targets. An investigation by campaign group Global Witness found that the United Arab Emirates signed over US$100 billion of oil deals in 2023 while it presided over climate negotiations.

    Commitments to no new fossil fuels, such as Labour’s plan to end new licensing, are less prone to obfuscation because they are specific and immediate. What’s more, it is clear for everyone to see if a new fossil fuel project is being built. Making commitments that are easily verifiable is a proven recipe for building international trust and cooperation around a shared goal.

    There are also political advantages to stopping new fossil fuel projects. Coalitions that support fossil fuels, including oil firms and their employees, are more capable of organising against the closure of existing assets than the cancellation of those yet to be built. Opposing coalitions, including communities living with the pollution and disruption of oil and gas extraction, tend to be more successful when mobilising against planned projects.

    The new norm

    By making a “no new fossil fuels” commitment, governments can help establish a new norm.

    A norm is an expected standard of behaviour, like the norm against smoking in indoor public places, or the international norm against slavery. The more states and global institutions adopt a norm the more social pressure it places on others to follow suit. Once a critical mass has adopted the norm, its spread is self-sustaining.

    Arguably, this process is well underway for coal – the dirtiest fossil fuel. The Powering Past Coal Alliance, a group of governments committed to phasing out coal power, was founded in 2017 by the UK and Canada. Already the alliance has expanded to include 60 national governments, including major coal consumers Germany and the US.

    An excavator piles coal onto a truck.
    Global coal demand rose when gas prices spiked in 2021 and 2022.
    Roman Vasilenia/Shutterstock

    The process of norm-building is gathering pace for other fossil fuels too. Governments that become core members of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, which so far numbers 15, commit to issuing no new licenses for oil and gas exploration on a path to the total phase-out of fossil fuel production.

    The Clean Energy Transition Partnership, comprising 41 governments and financial institutions, commits to ending international lending for fossil fuel projects. And in the private sector, 22 financial institutions have pledged to stop financing new oil and gas projects.

    Were a future UK government to commit to stopping new oil and gas fields, it would lend considerable momentum to the norm, given the UK’s role in the history of the oil industry and the fact that is home to BP and Shell, two of the world’s five “supermajor” oil companies.

    The UK Climate Change Committee, the government’s independent advisers, has noted that stopping new oil and gas projects would send an important signal to other countries. Such a move would also restore the UK’s reputation as an international leader on tackling climate change, at a critical time when the climate-denying far right is making inroads.

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    Greg Muttitt, Honorary Research Fellow, Energy & Climate Change, UCL; Fergus Green, Lecturer in Political Theory and Public Policy, UCL, and Steve Pye, Associate Professor in Energy Systems, UCL

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • Rosebank shows the UK’s offshore oil regulator no longer serves the public good

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    Igor Hotinsky / Shutterstock

    Gisa Weszkalnys, London School of Economics and Political Science and Gavin Bridge, Durham University

    In a four-line statement announcing the approval of the new Rosebank oil field 80 miles west of Shetland, the UK’s offshore oil and gas regulator showed its mission no longer serves the public good.

    The announcement by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which regulates oil and gas extraction in the waters off the British coast, asserted that net zero considerations had been taken into account – a technical definition that makes it appear long-term oil production is compatible with climate goals. This has outraged and dismayed climate scientists, campaigners, and the many other people concerned about the UK’s faltering climate leadership.

    The approval greenlights a process that is expected to produce first oil by 2026, and around 300 million barrels of oil (and a smaller amount of gas) over the next two decades. The project’s developers are Equinor, an oil company owned for the most part by the Norwegian state, and Ithaca Energy, owned by the Delek Group listed on the Tel Aviv stock exchange.

    The decision is out of step with demands for rapid action on climate change coming from a range of quarters. This includes shareholder activists demanding corporations accelerate decarbonisation, direct action groups such as Just Stop Oil, and financiers concerned about the risks of “asset stranding” as renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels.

    Public protests and legal challenges to the NSTA spotlight the irrationality and recklessness in the government’s expressed support for issuing new licenses. Activists are not alone in making this point.

    A welter of scientific studies and reports by international agencies confirm that new fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with keeping global temperature increases well below 2°C.

    Rosebank has been a major focus for climate activism in the past couple of years, as science, international policy and campaigners turn their attention to stopping new extraction, rather than solely focusing on reducing emissions. Calls to end new licensing for oil and gas are in line with climate science.

    But a climate politics focused on new licensing alone misses the point. The thing is, like other North Sea oil fields yet to be approved, Rosebank was licensed for oil and gas extraction years ago.

    The NSTA approval process follows licensing, sometimes after considerable time has passed. And it is this approval process that locks the UK into hydrocarbon production for years to come.

    End ‘maximising economic recovery’

    The core objective of the NSTA is to maximise the economic recovery of UK petroleum – a principle shorthanded as MER – as set out in the 1998 Petroleum Act. In practice, this means the regulator’s primary mission is to facilitate the extraction of oil and gas.

    A revised strategy in 2021 paired MER with an obligation to support the UK’s net zero commitments. And the former Oil and Gas Authority changed its name to include an explicit reference to the “transition” in 2022, underpinned by ambitions for emissions reduction and decarbonisation.

    NSTA sees its job as effecting the industry’s alignment with these goals. It is now also in charge of licensing for carbon capture and storage and offshore hydrogen storage.

    Rosebank’s approval therefore reveals a deeper truth: the regulator’s guiding objective fails the public good test. Regulation aims to avoid economic, environmental and social harms, and ensure the public good through delivering collective benefits and upholding socially-desirable ideals. The Rosebank decision arguably breaches this principle.

    Supporters of Rosebank argue it will contribute to the UK’s energy security and deploy decarbonisation technologies that reduce CO₂ emissions overall. These arguments do not stand scrutiny, however: oil from Rosebank, like around 80% of North Sea oil production, will be sold directly into international markets and will not materially affect the price of petrol or diesel for UK motorists.

    Much of the value of that oil will flow into the portfolios of Equinor and Ithaca. That value could be harnessed to speed up transition to renewables or ensure its benefits are widely distributed, but that’s largely down to Equinor and Ithaca – not the UK government.

    The NSTA asserts that its decision has “tak[en] net zero considerations into account”, yet the sector’s own decarbonisation ambitions count only those emissions associated with producing a barrel of oil, and exclude those from burning it (70%-90% of its total impact).

    Rewrite the Petroleum Act

    A decade ago, a decision by NSTA would not have raised much attention. Now it highlights a significant problem in need of reform. Piecemeal adaptation has left MER and other core regulatory principles untouched, which is at odds with the climate emergency.

    Existing licensed fields escape the weak scrutiny embodied in instruments such as the climate compatibility checkpoint, a series of tests to be applied in decisions about future licensing rounds. What’s more, as a litmus test for approval, Rosebank indicates other licensed projects may get the go-ahead, like Cambo.

    Removing NSTA’s central objective to maximise economic recovery requires nothing less than a rewrite of the Petroleum Act. This would be an opportunity to fundamentally revise what the North Sea is for, and whether or how to exploit its resources in the future. A start would be to consider a reversal of direction – a “minimising” of economic recovery, for example – which redefines the “economic” in terms of what is socially necessary.

    Such a move will inevitably entail reviewing licences already in place, and will likely generate challenges from the sector and other powerful incumbents. Rosebank exposes, however, how the new mission of the offshore regulator has to be about securing a new public good. This needs wider social debate, and should ultimately be decided through parliament.

    Imagine weekly climate newsletter

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    Gisa Weszkalnys, Associate Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science and Gavin Bridge, Professor of Geography and Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute, Durham University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • UN Secretary-General Warns of ‘Climate Hell’ After Planet Experiences String of Record Temperatures

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    https://www.ecowatch.com/un-guterres-climate-hell-warning.html

    Secretary-General António Guterres delivers his special address on climate action from the American Museum of Natural History in New York on June 5, 2024. United Nations

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called for immediate action to avoid the world being in “climate hell” after this May was the warmest ever recorded, according to a recent report from the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

    “It’s climate crunch time,” Guterres said at New York’s American Museum of Natural History on Wednesday, as UN News reported. “We stand at a moment of truth.”

    Guterres emphasized that, though the need for measures to combat the climate crisis globally is at an all-time high, so are the occasions for sustainable development and economic prosperity.

    “In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger, we are the danger. But, we are also the solution,” Guterres said.

    The UN chief cited C3S in saying emissions worldwide must be reduced by nine percent annually to maintain the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature limit established in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Global emissions increased by one percent last year.

    On Wednesday, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization said the temperature threshold has an 80 percent likelihood of being surpassed within the next five years.

    “We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” Guterres said, as reported by UN News. “We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell, and the truth is we have control of the wheel.”

    …

    Continues at https://www.ecowatch.com/un-guterres-climate-hell-warning.html

  • Deadly heat waves in Mecca and Greece underscore climate crisis

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    https://www.axios.com/2024/06/17/heat-waves-greece-mecca-saudi-arabia-climate-crisis

    As the U.S. faces another potentially record heat wave this week, the Middle East and Europe’s Mediterranean have endured extreme temperatures that have proven deadly.

    The big picture: Multiple heat-related deaths have been reported in Greece during the country’s earliest heat wave on record and Jordan’s official news agency said Sunday “14 Jordanian pilgrims died and 17 others were missing” in the searing heat while on the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

    Tourists outside the Acropolis during high temperatures in Athens, Greece, on June 12, when authorities announced the closure of the ancient site for five hours due to soaring temperatures that also shut schools. Photo: Hilary Swift/Bloomberg via Getty Images
    • The heat waves sweeping these regions this month have been made “at least five times more likely” because of human-caused climate change, per new Climate Central analysis.

    Context: Climate Central’s analysis is based on the group’s Climate Shift Index (CSI), which compares observed or forecast temperatures with simulations of the same weather conditions minus excess atmospheric greenhouse gases, per Alex Fitzpatrick.

    • The idea is to compare real-world conditions with what might have been the case had human-caused climate change been absent.
    • Saudi Arabia had a CSI of 5, meaning that human-caused climate change made a given daily average temperature five times more likely as of Monday morning. Greece, which has endured two weeks of extreme heat, had a CSI of 5 last week and 2 on Monday. Parts of Turkey had a CSI of 5.

    Between the lines: Greece has been among the worst-affected European countries for extreme weather caused by the climate crisis in recent months, enduring an intense heat wave, severe wildfires and heavy rains flooding the country’s streets last year.

    • A joint report by UN and European Union agencies found in April that Europe’s temperatures are rising about twice as fast the global average due to human-caused climate change — making it the fastest-warming continent on Earth.

    …

    Continues at https://www.axios.com/2024/06/17/heat-waves-greece-mecca-saudi-arabia-climate-crisis

  • Barclays’ billions of ‘sustainable’ finance for fossil fuel industry is greenwash, says investor

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    Original article by Josephine Moulds , Nimra Shahid republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    The bank has funded the companies behind a controversial pipeline and aggressive oil expansion as part of their commitment to fighting climate change

    Barclays has been branded “totally dishonest” by one of its investors for calling tens of billions of dollars for fossil fuel companies “sustainable finance”.

    The UK high street bank says it is helping to address climate change by raising $1 trillion in sustainable and transition finance by 2030. This includes sustainability-linked loans and bonds, in which a company agrees to meet certain climate-related targets or else face a higher interest rate.

    But these targets can be weak and the penalties for failing to meet them paltry. The company can also use the money raised how it sees fit, meaning supposedly sustainable finance could fund polluting activities.

    Andrew Harper of Epworth, an investment manager owned by the Methodist church that invests in Barclays, said: “We’re concerned because the bank is making such a substantial claim and the public thinks the climate emergency is being worked towards being solved. Meanwhile, the problem is getting worse and worse. We think it’s totally dishonest.

    “If they are calling the financing of any fossil fuel companies sustainable finance, that to me is greenwash.”

    Barclays said: “We are committed to being transparent and report separately on the green finance, sustainable finance and the sustainability-linked finance mobilised towards our $1 trillion target, so stakeholders and investors have a clear understanding of what we are reporting.” It said it set out very clear requirements for energy clients’ targets and transition plans in order to access finance.

    ‘Deeply problematic’ deals

    Barclays helped raise $41bn in sustainability-linked finance for fossil fuel companies last year, according to an analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism of data from LSEG, the financial markets group. The $41bn figure covers the total value of the deals Barclays worked on alongside other banks. Barclays itself counts only the funding it is directly responsible for, which it said was $10.9bn across all sectors last year.

    Katharina Lindmeier, responsible investments manager at the publicly owned workplace pension scheme Nest, which also invests in Barclays, said TBIJ’s findings were “very concerning”. She added: “We’ll be raising this research with their management team directly at the next opportunity.

    “Regulators are looking closely at the issue of greenwashing and if there is any uncertainty, it’s better to be cautious than to mislead customers. Any loans which help companies expand oil and gas infrastructure should not be classed as sustainable.”

    The Financial Conduct Authority, the UK regulator, wrote to banks last year highlighting concerns about this type of loan, including weak incentives, potential conflicts of interest, and low ambition. It said that these may lead to accusations of greenwashing.

    Anders Schelde, chief investment officer of AkademikerPension, another Barclays investor, said sustainability-linked finance for oil and gas companies is “in most cases deeply problematic”. He said: “We don’t count sustainability-linked bonds and loans as green investments in our own accounting because we know there are so many problems with them. The penalties are low and the targets often insufficient.”

    Last year, Barclays helped raise $3bn worth of sustainability-linked loans and bonds for Enbridge, a company that is dramatically expanding oil and gas infrastructure across North America.

    Enbridge is behind the construction of a controversial 1,000-mile pipeline that cuts through Indigenous land in the US to pump tar sands oil. It paid US police to crack down on protesters and has been fined millions of dollars for repeated environmental violations.

    Barclays classifies the Enbridge debt as sustainable because the company has set a target to cut emissions from its own operations. In part, it intends to do this by using solar power to pump oil through its pipelines.

    “The real source of emissions from a company like Enbridge will be from the oil and gas its pipelines help transport,” said Jeanne Martin from responsible investment charity ShareAction. “We do not need greener pipelines, we need to stop the reckless expansion of the fossil fuel industry.

    “If the conditions that a bank sets to provide financing to oil and gas transport companies don’t tackle oil and gas, the bank will be accused of greenwashing.”

    Barclays also helped raise a $2.8bn sustainability-linked loan for Harbour Energy, the UK’s largest oil and gas producer. Harbour extracted the equivalent of nearly 70m barrels of oil last year, which if burned would produce the equivalent of eight coal-fired power stations’ annual emissions.

    Scientists agree that developing any new oil and gas fields will derail climate targets and push global heating beyond 1.5 degrees – which the UN says will threaten lives, food sources and economies worldwide.

    It seems that Harbour is aggressively exploring for new oil and gas as it hopes to extract a further 880 million barrels of reserves in the coming decades. It does not appear from Harbour’s public statements that the company has any plans to shift its focus to renewables.

    Yet Barclays’ loan to Harbour Energy is called sustainable because the company has committed to reducing emissions from the process of extracting oil and gas. This, however, takes no account of the vast majority of Harbour’s emissions, which are generated from burning the oil and gas itself.

    Enbridge paid US police to crack down on protesters opposing its Line 3 pipeline
    Nicole Neri/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    The notorious oil trader Trafigura also benefited from more than $5.4bn in loans that Barclays called sustainable finance. Counting its supply chain and all the emissions generated by the oil it trades and transports, Trafigura was responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions last year than Spain.

    Trafigura’s interest payments are linked to certain sustainability targets, including a pledge to cut emissions – but only from its own operations rather than the burning of the fuels it trades and transports. This accounts for about 1% of the company’s total emissions.

    Trafigura said Barclays was one of 54 banks involved in the deal, and said “sustainability-linked loans are an important tool in incentivising reductions in emissions”. It added that its direct emissions were less than 1% of Spain’s. While it reports its indirect emissions, it does not consider all of them “to be within our current sphere of influence”.

    Enbridge said it takes climate change seriously and is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. It said sustainability-linked finance plays an important role in meeting emission-reduction goals and supporting the transition to a lower carbon economy. The company also said that the 1,000-mile Line 3 pipeline had local and tribal approvals and met the strictest environmental standards, and that payments to law enforcement were made and administered via a third party.

    Harbour did not respond to a request for comment.

    Barclays said: “Sustainability linked loans and bonds are an important sustainable finance tool, incentivising borrowers, particularly in hard to abate sectors, to achieve sustainability objectives over time.”

    Net-zero banking

    Barclays has committed to cut its emissions – including of the companies it finances – to net zero by 2050. To reach this target, it will have to stop providing money to companies that refuse to shift away from fossil fuels.

    Enbridge’s Line 3 project cuts through Indigenous land
    Tim Evans/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    But a report out today shows that the bank’s funding for fossil fuels increased in 2023 from 2022, which troubled shareholders who have been urging it to reduce lending in line with its climate targets. Barclays was Europe’s top funder of the fossil fuel industry last year, according to the report led by the Rainforest Action Network.

    Lindmeier, the Nest investment manager, said: “We want to see Barclays immediately reduce its financing to companies behind new fossil fuel expansion. Any delays could leave the company more exposed to bad loans and potentially cost them millions of pounds.”

    Laura Hillis from the Church of England pensions board, another Barclays investor, said: “We are looking for banks to produce a clear climate plan and to see the commitments carry through into lending decisions. Our concern is that these fossil fuel financing figures show that is not happening at the pace we’d like.”

    Climate-conscious investors have been putting pressure on Barclays to make good on its net-zero pledge and earlier this year the bank committed to stop providing specific project finance for oil and gas expansion and related infrastructure.

    However, less than 2% of Barclays’ funding for oil and gas last year fell under the label of “project finance”. Almost all of it comes in the form of general, unrestricted finance for the companies undertaking those projects.

    “Barclays’ new oil and gas policy is an important step forward for the bank but it should have gone so much further,” said Martin from ShareAction, which brought together Barclays shareholders to urge the bank to restrict lending to oil and gas companies.

    “Ultimately, the bank has kept the right to finance companies that have plans to massively expand the fossil fuel industry with no strings attached, and that’s a real problem.”

    Original article by Josephine Moulds , Nimra Shahid republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.