big oil and gas

Rishi Sunak Boasts That Oil Funded Think Tank ‘Helped Us Draft’ Crackdown on Climate Protests

Spread the love

Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog according to their republishing guidelines

The prime minister praised Policy Exchange, which received $30,000 from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in 2017, for shaping laws that target green activists.

Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil's You May Find Yourself... art auction.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction.

Rishi Sunak has confirmed that a fossil fuel-funded think tank helped to draft his government’s laws targeting climate protests. 

Speaking at Policy Exchange’s summer party on Wednesday (28 June), the prime minister boasted that the think tank’s work “helped us draft” the government’s crackdown on protests, according to Politico.

OpenDemocracy reported last year that Policy Exchange’s US wing, American Friends of Policy Exchange, which provides funds to the UK branch, received $30,000 (roughly £23,700) from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in 2017.

Two years later, Policy Exchange published a report entitled “Extremism Rebellion”, in reference to the environmental protest group, calling for the police and the government to clamp down on eco protests. 

An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson told DeSmog that this story “exemplifies the stranglehold that private interests have on our democracy.”

Ministers have been clear that new police powers are designed to stop climate protests. The former Home Secretary Priti Patel cited tactics used by Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain when arguing for what became the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. 

Sunak’s statement yesterday appears to confirm Extremism Rebellion’s allegation that sections of the 2022 law were ‘directly inspired’ by Policy Exchange’s report.

The “Extremism Rebellion” report said that legislation relating to public protest needed to be “urgently reformed” in order to “strengthen the ability of the police to place restrictions on planned protest and deal more effectively with mass lawbreaking tactics”.

This was implemented in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which came into effect in April 2022 and awarded the police new powers to decide what constitutes a ‘disruptive’ protest and to more harshly punish those involved.

In the year to April 2023, more than 2,000 people were arrested and 138 spent time in prison for their involvement in campaigns by Just Stop Oil, the climate protest group.

Those encarcerated included two protesters who were each sentenced to more than two and a half years in prison – the longest sentences for peaceful climate protest in British history, according to the group – for causing a ‘public nuisance’ by scaling the Dartford Crossing.

This crackdown on protests has been continued by current Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a vocal critic of the UK’s net zero targets, who singled out Just Stop Oil when advocating further powers in the Public Order Act 2023, which received Royal Assent in May.

The legislation, which has been labelled as “draconian” by its opponents, allows the police to pre-emptively intervene to shut down protests and creates new offences for what it describes as “guerrilla tactics”, all of which have been used in recent climate protests.

The law criminalises protesters for attaching themselves (or coming equipped) to lock on to other protesters or buildings, threatening a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both.

For organising protests that block key infrastructure including “airports, railways, printing presses, and oil and gas infrastructure” protesters are threatened with up to 12 months in prison, while tunnelling is set at three years.

The law follows a November report by Policy Exchange that said it was “imperative” for protesters who repeatedly obstruct the highways to be “swiftly arrested, convicted and punished”. It further urged that “magistrates and judges should be imposing severe sentences on repeat offenders who aim deliberately to harm the public by breaching the criminal law”.

Sunak, who worked at Policy Exchange before his 2015 election to parliament, also used the summer party to make a jibe about the Labour Party’s links to Just Stop Oil, one of whose funders, Dale Vince, has donated £1.4 million to the party since 2014. 

Sunak’s comments echoed the claim made often by senior Conservatives, that Labour’s opposition to new North Sea oil and gas projects is linked to Dale’s donation. Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, has repeatedly attacked Labour over the connection, writing in the Daily Mail that Labour has become “the political wing of Just Stop Oil”. 

In fact, the International Energy Agency has said that new oil and gas projects are not compatible with keeping warming below 1.5C – an international climate goal that has been adopted by the UK government.

Meanwhile, DeSmog revealed in March that the Conservative Party received £3.5 million from fossil fuel interests, high-polluters and climate science deniers last year alone.

Policy Exchange and Climate Change

Policy Exchange was co-founded in 2002 by Michael Gove, who has been a mainstay in the cabinet since 2010. The think tank continues to retain significant influence in Westminster: Policy Exchange alumni make up a greater number of special advisers in Rishi Sunak’s government than any other think tank.

At the 2022 Conservative Party conference, Jacob Rees-Mogg, at the time serving as Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary, said: “I believe that where Policy Exchange leads, governments have often followed.”

Lord Frost, is currently a senior fellow at the think tank. He was also recently appointed as a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – the UK’s principal climate science denial group. This week, Frost – who also attended the Policy Exchange summer party – gave a speech criticising Sunak’s government for offering voters “more net zero”. 

Since 2016, Policy Exchange has hosted events at the Conservative Party conference sponsored by energy companies and trade groups including: wood-burning bioenergy firm Drax, gas and electricity supplier E.on, British Gas parent company Centrica, the gas and electricity industry body Energy Networks Association, gas generation company Cadent Gas, trade association Hydrogen UK, and the Sizewell C nuclear plant. 

According to VICE News, while the think tank does not advertise the cost of sponsored meetings at party conferences, other similar organisations charge over £12,000 to host an event, which lasts about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile, the chair of the Policy Exchange board is Alexander Downer, who served as Australia’s Foreign Minister from 1996 to 2007. Downer has expressed climate science scepticism in the past, claiming that we are “going through an era” of global warming, and saying that Australian climate leadership would be expensive “virtue signalling”. 

Downer was appointed as the High Commissioner to the UK in 2014 by Tony Abbott, who also recently joined the board of the GWPF. 

Policy Exchange and 10 Downing Street have been approached for comment.

Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog according to their republishing guidelines

Continue ReadingRishi Sunak Boasts That Oil Funded Think Tank ‘Helped Us Draft’ Crackdown on Climate Protests

Current heatwave across US south made five times more likely by climate crisis

Spread the love

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/27/heatwave-human-caused-climate-crisis-texas-louisiana-mexico

Latest ‘heat dome’ event over Texas and Louisiana, plus much of Mexico, driven by human-cause climate change, scientists find

Texas Longhorn bull. Image Sheila Brown CC0 Public Domain

The record heatwave roiling parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mexico was made at least five times more likely due to human-caused climate change, scientists have found, marking the latest in a series of recent extreme “heat dome” events that have scorched various parts of the world.

…

More than 40 million people in the US, including those living in the Texas cities of Houston, San Antonio and Austin, have been placed under excessive heat warnings, raising fears over the health of people vulnerable to the heat and placing Texas’s energy grid under strain from surging air conditioner use.

The heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans by the burning of fossil fuels made the extreme heatwave at least five times more likely, according to a recent analysis by Climate Central, a climate science non-profit. The punishing heat, which is forecast to linger further throughout the week in Texas, is creating “stressful conditions for millions of people”, according to Andrew Pershing, vice-president for science at Climate Central.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/27/heatwave-human-caused-climate-crisis-texas-louisiana-mexico

Continue ReadingCurrent heatwave across US south made five times more likely by climate crisis

Public Pension Funds Have Lost Billions on Their Fossil Fuel Investments: New Analysis

Spread the love

Orifginal article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog

Six major US retirement funds would be worth a combined $21 billion more today if they had divested a decade ago, University of Waterloo researchers find.

US public pension funds would be worth billions more if they divested from fossil fuels, researchers have found. Credit: Climate Clock

For U.S. public pension funds, divesting from oil, coal, and gas would result in overall higher financial value.

That is the key takeaway from a new study examining the past decade’s portfolio performance for several of the largest public pension funds in the country. The analysis by researchers at the University of Waterloo, published today in partnership with the organization Stand.earth, has found that the total cumulative value of six major U.S. public pension funds would have been about 13 percent higher had they divested from fossil fuel holdings ten years ago – equivalent to around $21 million in earnings.

Using Bloomberg Terminal data, the researchers looked at the actual portfolio performance between December 31, 2012 and December 31, 2022 of six funds: the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, California Public Employees’ Retirement System, California State Teachers’ Retirement System, New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, Oregon Public Employees’ Retirement Fund, and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.

Then they analyzed how the funds would have done over the same time period if the fossil fuel investments had been divested, and their value spread evenly among the remaining holdings.

The analysis found that while the total actual value of the six funds was $402.8 billion at the end of 2022, they would have been worth $424.6 without the fossil fuel holdings. 

“Financially it doesn’t make sense to stay invested [in fossil fuels],” Olaf Weber, a University of Waterloo sustainable finance professor and co-author of the study, told DeSmog.

He said the findings are consistent with other similar studies, such as a 2019 analysis which found that California and Colorado’s public pension funds would have been a combined $19 billion richer had they divested from fossil fuel holdings in 2009.

Although major fossil fuel companies have reported record profits over the past year, this growing body of research suggests that it has not significantly boosted the value of pension funds that remain invested in these companies. 

Experts have pointed out that in addition to the great volatility of the fossil fuel industry’s value,  the sector appears to be bound for long-term, perhaps even permanent, decline.

“Today the oil and gas sector is in a pitched battle for last place in the stock market,” said Tom Sanzillo, director of financial analysis at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, during an April webinar timed to the release of a report calling for major hospital systems to divest from the industry. 

While the fossil fuel sector commanded about 28 percent of the stock market in 1980, it now accounts for about 5 percent or less of the market, Sanzillo said during the event.

Oil and gas sector profits “are unsustainable,” he said, “and their future is on shaky ground.”

Fossil Fuel Divestment ‘a Win-Win Situation’

One often-used argument for staying invested in fossil fuels is that it allows investors to try influencing companies through shareholder engagement. The problem with this argument is that shareholder engagement has not been very effective at compelling big polluters to take serious climate action. 

“The results show there is not really an effect of engagement because if [investors] put pressure on the fossil fuel companies to reduce production, it will have a negative impact on the share price as well,” Weber said. “So that’s kind of a conflict.”  

Weber and his colleagues also looked at the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the public equity investments of eight U.S. pension funds: the same six plus the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association and the Alaska Retirement Management Board. They found that if the funds had divested from fossil fuel holdings ten years ago, their cumulative carbon spew would have been about 16.6 percent or nearly 280 million tons lower  – the equivalent of the annual energy use of 35 million homes.  

“[Fossil fuel] divestments are able to create a win-win situation with higher financial returns and lower carbon footprints,” the researchers concluded.

Orifginal article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog

Continue ReadingPublic Pension Funds Have Lost Billions on Their Fossil Fuel Investments: New Analysis

Most EU Hydrogen Projects Risk Prolonging Use of Fossil Fuels

Spread the love

Original article republished from DeSmog according to their republishing guidelines.

Data shared with DeSmog shows that only one in ten proposals have committed to using climate-friendly green hydrogen.

Grid operators across Europe are seeking to repurpose gas pipelines to transport hydrogen. Credit: Flickr (CC0 1.0)

The European Commission is facing calls to assess the climate impact of scores of proposed hydrogen projects after data revealed that 90 percent of them could be used to prolong the use of planet-warming natural gas.

Companies operating Europe’s existing natural gas infrastructure are seeking to preserve the value of their assets by converting them to carry clean-burning hydrogen to power homes and industry in line with legally-binding climate targets. 

But the data compiled by Brussels-based research and advocacy group Food & Water Action Europe, and shared with DeSmog, shows that 57 percent of 147 hydrogen projects under consideration by the European Commission are designed to also carry natural gas, or “blue” hydrogen made from the fossil fuel. A further 33 percent of projects have failed to rule out carrying fossil-based hydrogen, or have no credible plans to source climate-friendly “green” hydrogen. 

Only 10 percent of the projects explicitly commit to using green hydrogen – which is produced from water using a process powered by wind or solar energy, and does not produce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with other forms of the energy carrier. 

Many of the hydrogen schemes also fail to adequately consider how they would align with climate targets; the risk of hydrogen leaks; whether there will be sufficient hydrogen demand; where hydrogen will be sourced, or the economics of hydrogen infrastructure, campaigners say.

In response to the findings, Marie Toussaint, a French Green Party politician, urged policymakers to assess whether each project aligned with a European Union target to slash emissions by more than half by the end of this decade, compared to 1990 levels.

“We call on the Commission to stand firm and prevent European public money from financing the ‘hydrogen hype’ via disproportionate climate-killing projects pushed by certain member states and lobbies,” Toussaint, who is a member of the European Parliament, told DeSmog.

“Climate change is accelerating and droughts and floods are hitting our continent,” she said. “The roadmap is clear, and repeated many times by scientists: We must no longer, the European Union must no longer, invest the slightest euro in fossil fuels.”

The European Commission did not respond to a request for comment.

The data was derived from a review of hydrogen projects applying for classification as European Commission “Projects of Common or Mutual Interest” (PCIs or PMIs) — key projects to increase energy infrastructure connectivity, while meeting climate targets, that may be eligible for public funds. Successful projects are to be announced in November.

Hydrogen was included in the PCI/PMI category for the first time this year – a sign of the increasingly strong legislative and policy support hydrogen projects enjoy within Europe.

European gas companies proposed more than 90 percent of the hydrogen projects, ranging from pipeline networks and energy ‘corridors’, to salt caverns capable of storing liquefied hydrogen. 

The proposals included a storage facility in Slovakia that would store 95 percent natural gas and five percent hydrogen, and H2 Med, a pipeline project connecting Spain, Portugal, France and Germany that has not ruled out transporting hydrogen made using natural gas.

Green Hydrogen

The EU has set ambitious goals to develop green hydrogen which is seen as a possible solution for decarbonising so called hard-to-abate industries, such as steel. However, the data showed that many of the proposals contained no mention of green hydrogen at all. 

Most of the proposed hydrogen projects would either allow for continued use of natural gas within pipelines; carry a blend of natural gas and hydrogen, or rely heavily on blue hydrogen, made from natural gas.

The fossil fuel industry says blue hydrogen can be a climate solution since the CO2 generated during the production process is sequestered underground using a process known as carbon capture and storage. Critics dismiss that claim, arguing that the process prolongs demand for fossil gas; is inefficient; and leaks large amounts of CO2.

More than a hundred of the project submissions were made by members of the Brussels-based European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas, a trade association representing gas networks across Europe. “ENTSOG sees green hydrogen to be the dominant source of hydrogen for the future European energy infrastructure,” a spokesperson told DeSmog.

A further 37 projects were submitted by other fossil fuel companies, including Germany utility Uniper, Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor, and oil majors Shell and BP.

More than a hundred of the projects would repurpose existing fossil fuel infrastructure.

Frida Kieninger of Food & Water Action Europe, who led the analysis, said the fossil fuel industry enjoyed a priority seat at the table in deciding on key infrastructure.

“Unsurprisingly, they have little to no concern about these giant infrastructure projects transporting hydrogen made from dirty fossil fuels,” Kieninger told DeSmog.

“It’s not hard to imagine what this risks leading to: billions spent on hydrogen pipes despite high uncertainties around future demand and supply – and a damaging impact on the climate.” 

Touissant, of the Green Party, says the criteria for approving the projects should exclude hydrogen produced from natural gas and require projects to run on green hydrogen by 2029.

“If a project does not respect the imposed conditions…the project leaders must be sanctioned and ordered to reimburse the public funds received,” she said. 

“Greenwashing must be fought, especially when it comes to using public money.”

Original article republished from DeSmog according to their republishing guidelines.

Continue ReadingMost EU Hydrogen Projects Risk Prolonging Use of Fossil Fuels

In ‘Climate-Wrecking’ Reversal, Shell Ditches Plans for Oil Production Cut and Hikes Dividend

Spread the love

By JAKE JOHNSON Jun 14, 2023

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

Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
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.”

https://twitter.com/CJAOurPower/status/1668944856012451841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1668944856012451841%7Ctwgr%5Eec05d99c9db872b46c10035937ed391a9d054200%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fshell-ditches-oil-production-cut

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.

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

Continue ReadingIn ‘Climate-Wrecking’ Reversal, Shell Ditches Plans for Oil Production Cut and Hikes Dividend