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Trump Readies ‘Day One Climate Destruction Package’ After Raking in Big Oil Cash

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

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump listened to California Gov. Gavin Newsom at Sacramento McClellan Airport in McClellan Park, California on September 14, 2020. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

“The fossil fuel industry invested $75 million to secure Trump’s victory, and now they’re expecting a return,” said the executive director of Oil Change International.

The fossil fuel industry pumped tens of millions of dollars into President-elect Donald Trump’s successful bid for a second White House term—and it could begin seeing a return on its investment on his very first day in office.

Trump pledged on the campaign trail to be a “dictator” on day one in the service of accelerating U.S. fossil fuel production, which is already at record levels as nations around the world—including the United States—face the devastating consequences of planet-warming emissions.

Soon after his inauguration on Monday, Trump is expected to begin signing executive orders—some of them likely crafted by fossil fuel industry lobbyists—revoking climate-protection rules implemented by his predecessor and paving the way for new liquefied natural gas export permits, among other gifts to the industry.

Citing “several fossil fuel industry lobbying groups helping shape Trump’s energy agenda,” Business Insiderreported Thursday that Trump “could direct federal agencies to approve new terminals to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) and start unwinding restrictions on oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters.”

The president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s powerful lobbying group, said earlier this week that his organization is “excited” about the prospect of Trump lifting the LNG pause.

A study published Friday warns that a flurry of LNG terminal approvals would “deliver a windfall for U.S. fracking companies and exporters of liquefied methane” while “extending an export explosion that’s pushing up prices for American consumers while harming the climate and vulnerable communities.”

“Trump is handing these companies a blank check to expand their operations at precisely the moment we need to end fossil fuel extraction.”

Trump, whose Cabinet is set to be packed with fossil fuel industry allies, has also said he would immediately move to roll back President Joe Biden’s ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory—even though the law Biden used does not give presidents the power to undo previous offshore drilling bans.

In a statement on Friday, Oil Change International (OCI) listed a number of other actions Trump could take on day one, including withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, an emergency declaration to boost fossil fuel production, an expansion of drilling on public lands, and an attempt to revive the Keystone XL pipeline.

OCI dubbed the agenda “Trump’s day one climate destruction package.”

“The fossil fuel industry invested $75 million to secure Trump’s victory, and now they’re expecting a return,” said Elizabeth Bast, OCI’s executive director. “By appointing fossil fuel CEOs to key Cabinet positions and planning to dismantle critical environmental protections, Trump is handing these companies a blank check to expand their operations at precisely the moment we need to end fossil fuel extraction.”

“As Trump returns to office, we’re witnessing the deadly price tag of fossil fuel industry control over our democracy,” Bast said. “From the still-burning wildfires in Los Angeles to the destruction left by Hurricane Helene in Asheville, to the unprecedented droughts and floods devastating Southern Africa, the climate crisis is accelerating. These deadly disasters are driven by fossil fuel executives who put their profits ahead of our future.”

E&E News reported Friday that Trump “could sign somewhere between 50 and 100 executive orders” on the first day of his second term. One of the first targets, according to the outlet, will be Biden’s early executive order directing federal agencies to take part in a “government-wide approach to the climate crisis.”

Trump is also expected to take aim at renewable energy initiatives, including wind projects and an electric vehicle tax credit implemented under the Inflation Reduction Act.

In response to Trump’s planned actions, climate activists said the movement for a livable future must mobilize around the world and fight back in every way possible.

“One man and one election may temporarily cloud the horizon, but they cannot halt the relentless momentum of climate action,” Dean Bhekumuzi Bhebhe, senior just transitions and campaigns adviser at Powershift Africa, said Friday. “If anything, such moments are an invitation for historically polluting nations to step forward, not with the rhetoric of obstruction, but with the deeds of redemption. The world is watching, and we’ve seen enough bluster, now it’s time for genuine action. The stakes are no longer abstract, lives are being lost every day.”

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

Continue ReadingTrump Readies ‘Day One Climate Destruction Package’ After Raking in Big Oil Cash

As Apocalyptic Fires Torch LA, Climate Campaigners Say ‘Big Oil Did This’

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

A home is engulfed in flames during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles County, California on January 8, 2025. (Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

“The fires in Los Angeles aren’t just a tragedy, they’re a crime.”

As massive wildfires continued ripping through Los Angeles on Thursday, leaving utter devastation in their wake, climate campaigners said blame for the infernos ultimately lies with the mega-profitable oil and gas giants that have spent decades knowingly fueling the crisis that made the emergency in southern California possible.

“Los Angeles is burning. Entire neighborhoods have been wiped off the map. We are devastatingly unprepared for the climate that fossil fuel greed is creating,” the youth-led Sunrise Movement wrote on social media as several mostly uncontained fires wreaked havoc, supercharged by roaring winds and abnormally dry conditions.

“Oil and gas CEOs know they’re responsible for these disasters,” the group added. “But still, they choose to fight investments in renewable energy, spread propaganda, and bribe politicians into supporting $757 BILLION in fossil fuel subsidies.”

With appalling speed, the Los Angeles fires have so far scorched tens of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of homes, and killed at least five people—a death toll that’s expected to rise.

“It’s like Armageddon,” said one resident, a sentiment echoed by a CNN reporter in Los Angeles.

“Everyone keeps saying ‘apocalyptic,'” said CNN‘s Leigh Waldman. “But that doesn’t begin to cover it.”

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The Palisades fire, the largest of five blazes currently ravaging Los Angeles County, has already been deemed the most destructive in LA history.

Early estimates indicate the total economic damage of the Los Angeles fires could exceed $50 billion.

With a Thursday social media post featuring footage of the raging fires and damage in Los Angeles, Warren Gunnels, staff director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote: “They say the Green New Deal is expensive. Compared to what?”

https://twitter.com/GunnelsWarren/status/1877185320250179654?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1877185320250179654%7Ctwgr%5E69ff850d9a136ae650aa731c618c4a174d411dd9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fclimate-los-angeles-fires

Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement Wednesday that “these fires have taken lives and destroyed homes, livelihoods, and landscapes.”

“We are holding those affected by this disaster close in our hearts and appreciate the first responders who are bravely working to contain the fires. It is essential that federal and state authorities continue to provide these communities with all the resources and support they need to recover and heal,” said Jealous. “Barely a week into the new year, and fire season is here. This is not normal.”

“Time and again, we are witnessing fossil fuel-driven climate change heighten extreme weather, making wildfires increasingly common and increasingly destructive,” he continued. “We cannot be passive. We cannot elevate misinformation about what is needed to confront the worsening crisis. Leaders must take the action necessary to fund and support the home-hardening efforts that make our communities resilient.”

People watch smoke and flames from the Palisades Fire on January 7, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo: Tiffany Rose/Getty Images)

The Los Angeles fires come as states and localities across the United States are suing oil and gas companies for climate damages as extreme weather becomes increasingly frequent and destructive on a warming planet.

According to the Center for Climate Integrity, more than one in four Americans currently live in a community taking legal action against Big Oil, “underscoring the rapidly growing wave of calls to hold the oil and gas industry accountable for its decades-long climate deception and the harms it has caused.”

Aaron Regunberg, an attorney who is helping build a legal case against the fossil fuel industry, wrote Wednesday that the Los Angeles crisis “didn’t just happen.”

“A recent study found that nearly all of the observed increase in wildfire-burned area in California over the past half-century is attributable to anthropogenic climate change,” Regunberg, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, wrote on social media. “This devastation is the direct result of Big Oil’s conduct.”

Did you know that California has a law that makes it a crime to "recklessly cause a fire," as well as a victim restitution statute requiring those conficted of crimes to pay their victims for their economic losses?Big Oil did this. Prosecute them and make them pay.

— Aaron Regunberg (@aaronregunberg.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T23:48:21.696Z

Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media, offered a similar assessment, writing that “the fires in Los Angeles aren’t just a tragedy, they’re a crime.”

“This is exactly the sort of disaster that Exxon’s own scientists predicted more than 50 years ago, but they spent billions to keep us hooked on fossil fuels,” Henn added. “It’s time to make polluters pay.”

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

Continue ReadingAs Apocalyptic Fires Torch LA, Climate Campaigners Say ‘Big Oil Did This’

‘People Power Works’: Shell Backs Down in Anti-Protest Lawsuit Against Greenpeace

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

Greenpeace activists board a Shell platform headed toward the North Sea on February 6, 2023.  (Photo: Lou Benoist/AFP via Getty Images)

“Shell thought suing us for millions over a peaceful protest would intimidate us, but this case became a PR millstone tied around its neck,” said the co-executive director of Greenpeace U.K.

The United Kingdom-based oil giant Shell agreed Tuesday to settle a major lawsuit the company brought against Greenpeace after activists from the group boarded and occupied a company oil platform last year to protest fossil fuel expansion.

Greenpeace said in a statement that as part of the settlement, it agreed to donate £300,000—roughly $382,000—to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity that helps save lives at sea, but will pay nothing to Shell and accept no liability. The donation represents a fraction of the over $11 million in damages and legal costs defendants faced, the group said.

The Greenpeace defendants have also “agreed to avoid protesting for a period at four Shell sites in the northern North Sea.”

“Shell thought suing us for millions over a peaceful protest would intimidate us, but this case became a PR millstone tied around its neck,” said Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace U.K. “The public backlash against its bullying tactics made it back down and settle out of court.”

“This settlement shows that people power works. Thousands of ordinary people across the country backed our fight against Shell and their support means we stay independent and can keep holding Big Oil to account,” Hamid added. “This legal battle might be over, but Big Oil’s dirty tricks aren’t going away. With Greenpeace facing further legal battles around the world, we won’t stop campaigning until the fossil fuel industry stops drilling and starts paying for the damage it is causing to people and planet.”

“These aggressive legal tactics, the huge sums of money, and attempts to block the right to protest pose a massive threat.”

Shell brought the case, which Greenpeace characterized as a “textbook” strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), in February 2023 and sought $1 million in damages from activists who boarded a Shell-contracted ship carrying equipment to drill for oil in the North Sea.

“When the protest ended, the only damage Shell could find was a padlock which, they alleged, our activists broke. That’s it,” Greenpeace U.K. said Tuesday. “Yet they came after us with a million-dollar lawsuit, which they justified for their spending on safety.”

The group, which warned that the case had dire implications for the right to protest, credited a “sustained, year-long campaign against the suit” for forcing the oil behemoth to back down. The campaign, according to Greenpeace, “turned the legal move into a PR embarrassment for Shell.”

“The case was dubbed the ‘Cousin Greg’ lawsuit by Forbes after a scene in the Emmy-awarded drama Succession, in which the hapless character threatens to sue Greenpeace to universal dismay,” the environmental group noted Tuesday.

Greenpeace is currently facing several other SLAPP suits, including one brought by Energy Transfer, majority-owner of the Dakota Access pipeline. The group said Tuesday that the Energy Transfer suit “threatens the very existence of Greenpeace in the U.S.”

“These aggressive legal tactics, the huge sums of money, and attempts to block the right to protest pose a massive threat. It could stop Greenpeace being able to make a real difference on the things that matter most,” the organization said Tuesday. “It’s part of a growing trend by powerful corporations and governments to crush peaceful protest—using draconian laws or intimidation lawsuits like this.”

“It seeks to silence the people most impacted by the climate crisis. This threatens the global fight for climate justice,” the group added. “We won’t give up. This is Shell versus all of us.”

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

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Continue Reading‘People Power Works’: Shell Backs Down in Anti-Protest Lawsuit Against Greenpeace

Taxing Big Oil would grow UN climate loss & damage fund twentyfold, analysis finds

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A small tax on just seven of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies could grow the UN Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage by more than 2000% and help address the costs of extreme weather events, according to new analysis published today by Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty. The organisations are calling for a long term global tax on fossil fuel extraction, with year-on-year increases, combined with taxes on excess profits and other levies.

A ‘Climate Damages Tax’ would put a cost on every tonne of carbon emitted by the coal, oil and gas extracted – starting at $5 per tonne and rising each year thereafter. If it was imposed on ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor and ENI it could raise $15 billion in the first year alone to help the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries pay for the escalating cost of damage caused by climate change. Currently, just $702 million has been pledged to the loss and damage fund, while the combined profits of those fossil fuel companies exceeds $148 billion.

Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
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)

Earlier this month, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, French President Emmanuel Macron and Kenyan President William Ruto stated their support for a Climate Damages Tax.

The briefing also highlights the financial costs of some of this year’s worst weather events that have been attributed to climate change, totalling over $64bn. These include Hurricane Beryl, Hurricane Helene, the heatwave in India in May, Typhoon Carina/Gaemi, the floods in Brazil in May, and the floods in Kenya and Tanzania in April. The costs of damage from the disasters surveyed range from US$2.9bn (Typhoon Carina) to US$ 25bn (heatwaves in India), and present just a fraction of the total cost of loss and damage globally over the last year. 

A Climate Damages Tax imposed only on wealthy OECD countries could play an essential role in helping the poorest and most vulnerable to rebuild after climate-related disasters. Increasing annually by US$5 per tonne of CO2-equivalent based on the volumes of oil and gas extracted, the tax could raise an estimated US$900 billion by 2030 to support governments and communities around the world as they face growing climate impacts.

“While oil and gas giants keep raking in grotesque levels of profit from exploiting resources, the damages resulting from the industry’s operations are disproportionately borne by people who did not cause the crisis,” said David Hillman, Director of Stamp Out Poverty. “A climate damages tax – along with other levies on fossil fuels and high-emitting sectors – will make polluters pay for the cost of climate impacts, as well as supporting workers and affected communities in the transition to clean energy, jobs, and transport.”

“Who should pay? This is fundamentally an issue of climate justice and it is time to shift the financial burden for the climate crisis from its victims to the polluters behind it,” said Abdoulaye Diallo, Co-Head of Greenpeace International’s Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign. “Our analysis lays bare the scale of the challenge posed by climate loss and damage and the urgent need for innovative solutions to raise the funds to meet it. We reject Big Oil’s assault on people and democracy and call on governments worldwide to adopt the Climate Damages Tax and other mechanisms to extract revenue from the oil and gas industry.” 

The Loss and Damage Fund was announced at COP27 in Egypt to help developing countries pay for impacts of natural disasters caused by climate change. Recently renamed the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), it currently has US$702 million in pledged funds. According to Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty’s calculations, a Climate Damages Tax levied on seven major international oil and gas companies would add in the first year alone US$15.02 billion, corresponding to over 21 times what is currently pledged to the fund. 

“Paying the price: The economic impacts of seven extreme weather events in 2024 make the case for why climate polluters should pay”.

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards

Continue ReadingTaxing Big Oil would grow UN climate loss & damage fund twentyfold, analysis finds

‘We Need a Shift’: Climate Leaders Demand End of COP Dominated by Petrostates, Big Oil Lobby

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

Activists protesting against fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance at COP29 hold a demonstration on November 15, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

“It is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose,” a coalition of scientists and advocates wrote as more than 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists swarmed COP29 in Azerbaijan.

The crushing influence of petrostates and fossil fuel industry lobbyists has rendered the annual United Nations climate conference unfit to deliver the kinds of sweeping changes needed to avert catastrophic warming, a coalition of leading scientists, advocates, and policy experts warned in an open letter released Friday as the first week of the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan came to a close.

Acknowledging that the COP process has achieved “important diplomatic milestones” and “a remarkable consensus” on climate targets over nearly three decades of international negotiations, the coalition wrote that the policy framework produced by dozens of U.N. summits is not sufficient to solve the pressing crises facing humanity in an age of runaway warming and large-scale climate devastation.

“Science tells us that global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 7.5% annually to have any chance of staying within the 1.5°C threshold, a prerequisite for the stability of our planet and a livable future for much of humanity. In 2024, the task is unequivocal: Global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 4 billion tonnes,” reads the letter, whose signatories include former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres, Club of Rome global ambassador Sandrine Dixson-Declève, and Potsdam Institute for Climate Action Research director Johan Rockström.

“Twenty-eight COPs have delivered us with the policy framework to achieve this, but it is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose,” the letter continues. “Its current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”

The letter calls not for a complete abandonment of COP but rather “a fundamental overhaul” that would enable the U.N.-led summit “to deliver on agreed commitments and ensure the urgent energy transition and phase-out of fossil energy.”

The coalition of experts and advocates recommended a number of reforms for future COP summits, including “strict eligibility criteria to exclude countries who do not support the phase-out/transition away from fossil energy,” new “mechanisms to hold countries accountable for their climate targets and commitments,” and changes to limit the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists and ensure equitable representation.

“At the last COP, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered representatives of scientific institutions, Indigenous communities, and vulnerable nations,” Figueres said in a statement Friday. “We cannot hope to achieve a just transition without significant reforms to the COP process that ensure fair representation of those most affected.”

Rockström added that “there is still a window of opportunity for a safe landing for humanity, but this requires a global climate policy process that can deliver change at exponential speed and scale.”

“Planet Earth is in critical condition,” he said. “We have already crossed six planetary boundaries.”

“2024 marks yet another year at COP where we see those fighting the climate crisis outnumbered by those that have contributed to it the most—the fossil fuel industry.”

The open letter was released in the wake of a new analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition showing that at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the COP29 summit—giving the industry primarily responsible for the global climate emergency more representation than nearly every country present at the talks in Baku.

According to the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, the fossil fuel industry has more representation at COP29 than the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined.

Additionally, The Guardian reported Friday that “at least 132 oil and gas company bosses and staff were invited” to COP29 as “guests” by Azerbaijan’s government and “given host country badges.”

“2024 marks yet another year at COP where we see those fighting the climate crisis outnumbered by those that have contributed to it the most—the fossil fuel industry,” said Joseph Sikulu of 350.org. “How can we achieve the ambition that is needed to save our homes when these negotiations are continually flooded with fossil fuel lobbyists? There is a ban on tobacco lobbyists from attending the World Health Organization’s summit, why is that not the case for the fossil fuel industry at COP?”

“We demand that the upcoming COP presidencies set clear rules against the presence of fossil fuel interests at the negotiating table,” Sikulu added. “Our lives depend on it.”

Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president, joined climate advocates on Friday in decrying Big Oil’s capture of the U.N. climate summit.

“It’s unfortunate that the fossil fuel industry and the petrostates have seized control of the COP process to an unhealthy degree,” said Gore.

Lamenting that the follow-through on COP28 commitments to transition away from fossil fuels has been “very weak,” Gore said he believes “one of the reasons for that is that the petrostates have too much control over the process.”

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

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards

Continue Reading‘We Need a Shift’: Climate Leaders Demand End of COP Dominated by Petrostates, Big Oil Lobby