[A}nti-net zero think tanks, such as the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Institute for Economic Affairs, both housed at the infamous 55 Tufton Street, are known to be highly influential in shaping government policy – yet their funding sources remain largely opaque.
Until last year that is, when an investigation by openDemocracyrevealed the GWPF to have accepted money from US-based groups with interests in fossil fuels. As Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute told the Guardian following the revelations, “it is disturbing that the Global Warming Policy Foundation is acting as a channel through which American ideological groups are trying to interfere in British democracy”.
It is particularly disturbing when that influence leads to us being left behind in the transition to the post-fossil age.
As the world moves on to cheaper and better technologies, we must not allow fossil fuel-backed interests to dictate our energy and economic decisions – to do so would be to act like a newspaper board that decided not to invest in desktop computers because it was in thrall to the typewriter lobby.
I haven’t even mentioned climate change, because I haven’t needed to. In a world of rapidly evolving technology, it makes sound economic sense to move beyond the fossil fuel era and onto better, cleaner ways of powering our activity. We must not listen to the anti-green extremists trying to hold us back.
This is very draft, unfinished but at least I’ve started. Please expect it to be extended and elaborated.
Thinktanks are here as a huge part of the political landscape providing ready-made policy and even huge quantities of staff to governments matching their bigoted perspectives. The topic of thinktanks can be overwhelming and easily lead to distraction.
I had not realised that thinktanks have such influence in contemporary politics. It’s claims that thinktanks exerted huge influence over Brexit and that the Conservative manifesto was written and the Labour manifesto mostly written by think tanks. [M]
There is also the claim that donating to a thinktank gets you far better influence for your money than simply donating to a political party and that thinktanks are so influential because they have such huge media exposure. [M] George Monbiot complains that thinktanks are often presented in the media as experts without any mention of their political biases. [GM]
There are claims that thinktanks and the media conspire to promote their mostly shared agendas. I’ve come across this claim from two sources so expect that it’s probably correct. So you have lobbying, the mostly right-wing media and mostly right-wing thinktanks exerting their malign influence – the agenda of the rich and powerful – in politics and on political parties. [need to find these refs]
There are left-wing as well as right-wing thinktanks although it appears that right-wing ones are more influential, quite possibly through being far better funded.
One issue that I was chasing down in writing this article is how thinktanks can propose the totally insane position of exploit fossil fuels to the fullest extent possible – a proposition adopted by US and UK governments.
[M] article explains ‘The ASI’s chief executive Madsen Pirie has said that they propose things that at first are thought of as the “edge of lunacy”, which then become the “edge of policy”.’ This is the explanation for the exploit fossil fuels to the fullest extent proposition – it is actual, literal lunacy passing for policy. This is Heritage Foundation lunacy contained in it’s Project 2025, a detailed insane program of actions for the next insane Republican president and govenment to follow.
It is insane, isn’t it? The world is burning to a crisp with extreme weather events all over the globe, we’re likely to pass 1.5C in a few years when we’re already fekked at 1.1 or 1.2C and these insane fekkers want to accelerate global destruction. Why is anyone taking them seriously? They belong in an asylum. We’re talking about people getting killed and nature destroyed on a huge scale!
Heritage Foundation is the largest, most influential thinktank in US. It provided huge nimbers of staff for the Trump administration and promoted the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
U.S. climate scientist Peter Kalmus is seen outside a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles on April 6, 2022. Along with several others, he locked himself to the front door of the building and was ultimately arrested as they engaged in civil disobedience as part Scientist Rebellion’s week of action. (Photo: Scientist Rebellion)
The letter to President Joe Biden came amid a week of “scientist-led civil disobedience” demanding urgent climate action.
In a powerful direct appeal to President Joe Biden urging him to follow through on his vow to listen to science, a group of over 275 scientists on Thursday called on the U.S. leader to urgently ditch fossil fuels and lead the country to a renewable energy transition.
Written “in this moment of climate emergency… with utmost urgency,” the letter to Biden was coordinated by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch along with noted U.S. climate experts including Peter Kalmus, Sandra Steingraber, Robert Howarth, Mark Jacobson, and Michael Mann.
As Common Dreams previously reported, the scientists leading the effort unveiled the letter last month, seeking a critical mass of signatures to push back against the administration’s move to further oil and gas production as nations look to reduce their dependence on Russian fuels in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
The letter–bluntly declaring “Follow the Science, Stop Fossil Fuels”–was officially sent to the White House Thursday, landing amid a week of “scientist-led civil disobedience” featuring strikes and occupations in dozens of countries to highlight the urgency of the ecological and climate crisis.
In their letter to Biden, the expert group cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released in February cataloging the “unfolding climate catastrophe” as evidence of the need for swift action. Millions worldwide, including within the U.S., are already facing climate impacts, the IPCC report notes, including water scarcity and extreme weather events.
“These problems will only accelerate as we continue our reliance on fossil fuels,” the scientists wrote. “And, this is on top of the significant health and environmental justice impacts that power plants, export facilities, and other fossil fuel infrastructure have on neighboring communities.”
“As the IPCC report indicated, the scientific evidence is overwhelming that we must act now,” they wrote, “we simply do not have time to waste.”
Firmly rejecting Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s framing of the U.S. being “on war footing” in pushing for more domestic fossil fuel production, the scientists told Biden that such urgency must instead be directed at “building a renewable energy economy” and that he must exercise his “executive authority to redirect these massive investments, mobilize the country, and rally the global community around a program of energy security through a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”
“We urge you to lead boldly, take on the fossil fuel titans, and rally the country towards a renewable energy future,” the scientists wrote.
Lead signatory and climate scientist Kalmus was among those taking part in Scientist Rebellion direct actions on Wednesday; he was ultimately arrested after locking himself to the front door of a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles.
He was driven by what he sees as “humanity heading directly toward climate disaster” and “currently on track to lose everything we love.”
In an op-ed published at The Guardian Wednesday explaining why he was willing to risk arrest, Kalmus wrote, “If everyone could see what I see coming, society would switch into climate emergency mode and end fossil fuels in just a few years.”
In May 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) sent shockwaves through the fossil fuel industry and its allies in government by concluding that no new coal mines or oil and gas fields should be developed if the world is to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C), the limit agreed by governments to preserve a livable climate. The IEA’s logic was clear: Already-developed extraction projects – those actively producing fossil fuels or under construction – contain enough oil, gas, and coal to fulfill declining levels of demand aligned with limiting warming to 1.5°C. Developing more fields and mines would come with climate and/or economic costs that could be avoided by simply saying “no” to new extraction.
One year later, in May 2022, Oil Change International and a team of researchers [1] published a peer-reviewed study in the journal Environmental Research Letters (ERL) that went a step further than the IEA’s analysis (building on OCI’s path-breaking 2016 study).
We found that developed extraction projects hold not only enough fossil fuels to meet 1.5°C-aligned demand but way too much. Extracting the oil, gas, and coal within already developed fields and mines would push the world well beyond 1.5°C of warming. In fact, our study concluded nearly 40% of developed fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground to keep the 1.5°C limit in reach. Thus, in addition to ceasing new oil, gas, and coal development, as per the IEA’s recommendation, governments must also ensure a significant portion of existing extraction sites are shut down and decommissioned prematurely.
Unfortunately, since the IEA and OCI studies were published, governments (with a fewexceptions) and oil and gas companies (with zero known exceptions) have continued approving and investing in new extraction projects, and global fossil fuel emissions hit a new record high in 2022.
In this analysis, I provide an updated estimate of the steep and deep climate hole the fossil fuel industry has dug us into. Because of the lag time between research and final publication (and the difficulty of compiling quality coal mine data), the ERL study was based on estimates of committed carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions from developed fossil fuel reserves and remaining carbon budgets aligned with global climate goals as of January 1, 2018. Here I update the oil and gas reserves and carbon budget estimates to a baseline of January 1, 2023.
Figure 1: CO2 emissions committed by developed oil and gas fields and coal mines, compared to remaining carbon budgets from the start of 2023
The majority of the fossil fuel reserves within active fields and mines must now stay in the ground. Using updated 2023 data, the proportion of coal, oil, and gas reserves that must remain unextracted to meet the 1.5°C limit has increased from nearly 40% in 2018 to almost 60% in 2023.
As of 2023, developed oil and gas reserves alone, if fully extracted, would cause cumulative carbon emissions nearly 25% greater than the world’s remaining 1.5°C carbon budget. Thus, even in the theoretical scenario where coal mining stops immediately, developed oil and gas reserves alone could push the world beyond 1.5°C.
A significant portion – almost one-fifth (20%) – of oil and gas fields must be shut down, even if no new fields are developed and coal extraction stops tomorrow.
Developed fields and mines contain enough fossil fuel to push the world beyond 2°C, a significantly more dangerous threshold that could make parts of our planet newly uninhabitable.
These findings underscore why governments must show up to the upcoming United Nations-hosted climate summits, the Climate Ambition summit in September in New York and COP28 in December in the UAE, with super-charged commitments to:
Stop licensing and permitting new fossil fuel development, and
Initiate a fast and fair global phase-out of fossil fuels. To be fair, wealthy fossil fuel-producing countries must move fastest to revoke permits for and retire polluting infrastructure while fully funding a just transition to renewable energy.
There have been some rays of light. Core members of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance have committed to stop licensing new oil and gas exploration and phase out their oil and gas production on a 1.5°C-aligned timeline. A group of six Pacific Island nations recently issued a call committing to a fossil-free Pacific and demanding “a global, just and equitable phase out of coal, oil and gas.” And, at last year’s United Nations COP27 climate summit, over 80 countries pushed for the summit conclusions to include a call to phase out fossil fuels.
Yet, many of the same countries ostensibly backing the call for a fossil fuel phase-out at COP27 – including the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Norway – have turned around and hypocritically continued developing more fossil fuels.
When you are in a hole, the first step is to stop digging. It is time for countries to heed the call of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and come to New York in September with new and accelerated commitments to phase out fossil fuels backed by concrete policy action. To be credibly 1.5°C aligned, these commitments must include, at minimum, action to end licensing, permitting, or funding of new fossil fuel production – and, for the wealthiest countries, to fund a just global transition to renewable and sustainable energy.
Read on for more of the technical analysis comparing our updated results on developed fossil fuel reserves to those in the ERL study published last May.
