Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
I am webmaster of https://onaquietday.org. Here I am speculating on the likely outcomes of the current climate crisis. Please regard this post as draft and subject to change, revision or elaboration.
Writing in June 2023, the current situation is that the climate crisis is generally accepted as real, there are very few climate sceptics and instead there are mostly right-wing politicians but also others that campaign to stifle or delay meaningful climate action, the fossil fuel industry who are largely responsible for the climate crisis continuing to destroy the planet and profiteer in the process, scientists and others pleading for climate action. Extreme weather events are experienced worldwide which are expected to continue increasing, the 1.5 degree C goal of the Paris Agreement is likely to be passed within a few years.
There is currently some hostility to climate activists like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. I attribute this to the influence of the right-wing corporate press – GB News, Rupert Murdoch and Viscount Rothermere amoung others. As the climate is further damaged – and there’s only one way it’s going – the influence of these cnuts is likely to diminish as people recognise the shite they spew as exactly that.
People will come to realise that politicians and the tiny ruling elite that they serve have failed them as they experience more and harsher climate impacts actually over the next few years. Who will they turn to then? It’s obvious, isn’t it? We’re either going to end up co-operating to address the climate crisis or with authoritarianism protecting a tiny elite denying it.
Climate protestors take part in a march on April 29, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
“Regardless of how the White House spins President Biden’s actions, he cannot be a climate leader while continuing to expand fossil fuels.”
More than 500 advocacy groups from six continents urged U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday to declare a climate emergency and halt the further expansion of fossil fuel production ahead of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ September 20 Climate Ambition Summit in New York City.
Such a step, the groups wrote in a letter to Biden and the heads of key U.S. federal agencies, would help make the nation “a first mover in ending the fossil fuel era to right a legacy of historic harms and prevent global climate catastrophe.”
“You cannot claim legitimacy as a domestic or global leader if you continue to speed the destruction of the planet,” reads the letter, which was signed by 350.org, Oil Change International, Climate Action Network Zimbabwe, Fridays For Future South Asia, and hundreds of other groups from more than 60 countries.
“It’s time for the United States to answer the call to protect the future of the planet and use its unparalleled power to show what real climate leadership looks like,” the letter continues, specifically calling on the Biden administration to reject all federal permits for new fossil fuel projects, revoke any “illegally granted” permits for fossil fuel projects, use its authority to limit U.S. oil and gas exports, and declare a climate emergency.
The groups issued their demands shortly after climate campaigners, including signatories of the new letter, announced plans for a global mass mobilization ahead of Guterres’ summit and the subsequent COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates.
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program co-manager at Oil Change International, said Thursday that Biden’s “approach to the climate crisis is nothing short of hypocritical,” noting that the U.S. under his leadership remains “the world’s top oil and gas producer and exporter and is planning the largest expansion in oil and gas production over the next decade.”
To the dismay of climate advocates and scientists, the Biden administration has worked to advance several major oil and gas initiatives in recent weeks, including the Willow Project in Alaska and the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia.
“Every new fossil fuel project is incompatible with a livable future,” said Rosenbluth. “As the world’s biggest historic polluter, the U.S. has a responsibility to lead a global and just transition away from fossil fuels. Voters are not going to ignore Biden’s disastrous climate record unless he starts keeping his climate promises and paves the way for a sustainable future to avert further climate disaster.”
“The world desperately needs Biden to start living up to his rhetoric and address the root cause of the climate crisis.”
The new letter takes key federal agencies to task for failing to act in line with the president’s climate rhetoric, which has deemed runaway planetary warming “an existential threat.”
“Your Department of the Interior should be overseeing a fast and justly managed decline of fossil fuel production. Yet, your administration is actively expanding fossil fuel infrastructure,” the letter states. “It is approving new drilling permits at a faster rate than the previous administration.”
“Your Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration should be rejecting deepwater port permits for mega-polluting crude oil export facilities,” the letter continues. “Your Department of Energy should be a firewall against a flurry of over 20 gas export terminals proposed by industry across the Gulf coast, which could lead to over 1.1 billion metric tons of new emissions. Agencies like your Army Corps of Engineers continue to approve key permits for fossil fuel mega-projects despite clear legal mandates to protect the public interest.”
When he announced the Climate Ambition Summit late last year, Guterres said there is a “non-negotiable” price of entry for world leaders that wish to attend: “credible, serious, and new climate action and nature-based solutions that will move the needle forward and respond to the urgency of the climate crisis must be presented.”
“It will be a no-nonsense summit. No exceptions. No compromises,” he added at the time. “There will be no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters, or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”
Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager at Friends of the Earth, said Thursday that unless Biden quickly changes course, “there should be no place for him” at the summit.
“Regardless of how the White House spins President Biden’s actions, he cannot be a climate leader while continuing to expand fossil fuels,” said Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager at Friends of the Earth. “The world desperately needs Biden to start living up to his rhetoric and address the root cause of the climate crisis.”
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
“It will always be profit over people and planet for polluters,” said one campaigner. “Shell simply cannot be trusted—with either their own meager targets or our futures.”
Shell announced Wednesday that it is raising payouts to wealthy shareholders and scrapping plans to cut oil production by up to 2% annually, a move that environmental groups said lays bare the futility of relying on fossil fuel corporations to voluntarily curb their climate-destroying activities.
The London-based company, which more than doubled its annual profits last year, said in a press release that it now intends to “achieve cash flow longevity” by keeping oil production stable until 2030 and boosting gas production, even as scientists say a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels is necessary to avert global climate destruction.
“It is unacceptable that Shell is betting on even more short-term returns to appease shareholders,” said Sjoukje van Oosterhout, Climate Case Shell’s lead researcher. “Shell is now throwing in the towel on reducing oil production and even scaling up gas production.”
Shell also announced Wednesday that it is hiking its dividend by 15%, a change that’s set to take effect this quarter. In an additional gift to shareholders, the company said it plans to buy back at least $5 billion of its own stock in the second half of 2023.
“Record profits, off the back of the energy crisis, should be boosting up green investment,” Jonathan Noronha-Gant, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, said in a statement Wednesday. “Instead it’s shareholder pay-outs and a doubling down on climate-wrecking fossil fuels.”
Shell had previously said its oil and gas production would fall by 1-2% each year through 2030. But as Bloombergreported, Shell justified the newly announced shift by claiming it “achieved its initial output-reduction plan—announced in 2021 amid a focus on cutting carbon emissions—faster than anticipated.”
Noronha-Gant called Shell’s announcement a “climate bombshell” that “exposes the hollowness behind the setting of such a target.”
“It will always be profit over people and planet for polluters,” Noronha-Gant said Wednesday. “Shell simply cannot be trusted—with either their own meager targets or our futures.”
Others responded with similar outrage. Climate scientist Bill McGuire wrote on Twitter that Shell CEO Wael Sawan “knows exactly what the consequences of this decision are.”
“People will die—are already dying,” McGuire tweeted. “I want to see him jailed—along with all the other CEOs who have been unequivocally complicit in crimes against humanity. And so should you.”
Shell’s announcement comes weeks after Carbon Brief released an analysis highlighting the oil giant’s tacit admission that limiting warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century means an “immediate end to fossil fuel growth.”
“Shell had previously claimed that oil and gas production could rise for another decade, even as warming was limited to 1.5°C,” Carbon Brief observed. “The dramatic shift in its new ‘Energy Security Scenarios’ is not explicitly acknowledged, but… is hidden in plain sight.”
“The immediate end to fossil fuel growth in Shell’s new 1.5°C scenario marks a dramatic shift from its earlier work, which had squared the circle between limiting warming to 1.5°C and continuing to expand oil and gas production by invoking implausibly-large forest expansion,” Carbon Brief added.
Shell insisted Wednesday that it is “aiming to achieve near-zero methane emissions by 2030” and “net-zero emissions by 2050,” but research released earlier this week showed that such commitments are often meaningless because companies rarely outline specific steps they plan to take to achieve their stated targets.
Last month, Friends of the Earth Netherlands published a report accusing Shell of overstating its spending on renewable energy solutions by including “the sale of flowers and sandwiches at its gas stations” in the total, along with “biofuels with a high carbon footprint.”
“The company continues to contribute to catastrophic climate change,” the group concluded.
In October 1989, Shell researchers wrote a confidential report warning that climate-fuelled migration could swamp borders in the United States, Soviet Union, Europe, and Australia. “Conflict would abound,” the document said. “Civilisation could prove a fragile thing.” Now, that memo — first reported by DeSmog and Dutch investigative journalism platform Follow The Money — features in a new court brief alleging that Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and BP knowingly concealed the climate hazards of their fossil fuel products for decades.
A group of climate disinformation researchers and nonprofits filed the brief on April 7 in support of a 2020 lawsuit brought by the District of Columbia, part of a wave of litigation by at least 20 U.S. states and cities seeking to hold the oil industry to account for climate damages.
The 50-page brief cites academic studies and media reports to show how the oil industry was warned about the risks posed by a build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels in the late 1950s. Companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil went on to develop detailed internal knowledge of the problem, while backing industry associations waging sophisticated campaigns to cast doubt on climate science, the brief argues.
“While their tactics have changed, Defendants’ overall strategy of deception continues to this day,” the brief said. “Defendants now acknowledge that the climate is changing and claim to be leaders in efforts to combat climate change. However, they continue to run marketing and lobbying campaigns intended to mislead policymakers and the public about climate change and Defendants’ role in causing it.”
“The world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way—moving to leave oil, coal, and gas in the ground where they belong and massively boosting renewable investment in a just transition,” António Guterres said.
As United Nations climate talks came to a disappointing conclusion in Germany on Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres delivered remarks in New York City targeting “the polluted heart of the climate crisis: the fossil fuel industry.”
Guterres’ comments came just after he met with civil society leaders and ahead of his September Climate Ambition Summit in NYC, which is set to be followed in November by the U.N. conference COP28, hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai.
“Countries are far off track in meeting climate promises and commitments. I see a lack of ambition. A lack of trust. A lack of support. A lack of cooperation. And an abundance of problems around clarity and credibility,” he said. “The climate agenda is being undermined. At a time when we should be accelerating action, there is backtracking. At a time when we should be filling gaps, those gaps are growing.”
“Meanwhile, the human rights of climate activists are being trampled. The most vulnerable are suffering the most,” Guterres continued, noting that current policies put the world on track for a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century, nearly double the 2015 Paris climate agreement’s more ambitious 1.5°C goal. Hitting the higher number, he said, “spells catastrophe.”
“Yet the collective response remains pitiful. We are hurtling towards disaster, eyes wide open—with far too many willing [to bet it] all on wishful thinking, unproven technologies, and silver bullet solutions,” he declared. “It’s time to wake up and step up. It’s time to rebuild trust based on climate justice. It’s time to accelerate the just transition to a green economy.”
“It’s time to wake up and step up. It’s time to rebuild trust based on climate justice. It’s time to accelerate the just transition to a green economy.”
While acknowledging the important roles of governments and financial institutions—particularly from the Global No[r]th—in the worldwide transition to renewables, Guterres also said that “the fossil fuel industry and its enablers have a special responsibility.”
“The problem is not simply fossil fuel emissions. It’s fossil fuels—period,” he said in what was widely seen as a rebuke of recent remarks from Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, whose selection as COP28’s president-designate is controversial around the world given that he is also the UAE’s industry minister and CEO of the country’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
“The solution is clear: The world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way—moving to leave oil, coal, and gas in the ground where they belong and massively boosting renewable investment in a just transition,” Guterres asserted. However, just a tiny fraction of the oil and gas industry’s record $4 trillion windfall last year was put toward a clean future.
Stressing that “the world needs the industry to apply its massive resources to drive, not obstruct, the global move from fossil fuels to renewables,” Guterres called for “credible” transition plans “that chart a company’s move to clean energy—and away from a product incompatible with human survival.”
“Otherwise, they are just proposals to become more efficient planet-wreckers,” he said. Condemning plans that “rely on dubious offsets,” the U.N. leader said that they “must include reducing emissions from production, processing, transmission, refining, distribution, and use.”
While the press conference was far from the first time Guterres has called out the fossil fuel industry, his comments were lauded by campaigners preparing for a global mobilization in September, planned for just before the U.N. chief’s summit.
“The U.N. secretary-general’s speech echoes the call from people from across the world today demanding an end to the era of fossil fuels,” said Alex Rafalowicz, executive director of the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty Initiative. “The time for rhetoric, empty promises, and greenwashing is over.”
“Governments must work together to put in place an action plan to move away from dependence on oil, gas, and coal in the fairest and fastest way possible,” Rafalowicz added. “We will be on the streets to ensure peoples’ demands are carried into the negotiation halls in September. Climate impacts are escalating, fossil fuel corporations are digging in, but people are stepping up to end fossil fuels; fair, fast, and forever.”
Guterres’ remarks came as negotiators finished gathering in the German city of Bonn to prepare for COP28.
Oil Change International (OCI) global policy lead Romain Ioualalen said Thursday that “this speech by the U.N. secretary-general is a wake-up call for the countries that wasted two weeks arguing over procedural matters at the Bonn climate conference instead of charting a path towards a COP28 decision to phase out fossil fuels.”
“Countries must step up and fulfill the promises they made in Paris in 2015 to halt fossil fuel expansion and agree to a fair, fast, and full transition away from oil, gas, and coal and towards renewables,” Ioualalen continued. “Over 70 countries have called for a COP28 decision on fossil fuel phaseout in Bonn. Countries like Colombia and the members of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance are doing the hard work of implementing measures to keep oil and gas in the ground.”
“The contrast between this leadership and the actions of the world’s biggest historic polluter, the United States, could not be more striking,” he argued, adding that under President Joe Biden, “the U.S. has failed in its responsibility to lead a global and just transition away from fossil fuels and avert further climate disaster and has instead actively promoted fossil fuel expansion including with public money.”
OCI was among over 500 groups that sent a letter Thursday to Biden and leaders of key U.S. federal agencies demanding executive action “to stop expanding oil, gas, and coal production, the core driver of the climate emergency,” by the September summit.
