The latest IPCC climate report published yesterday at about 4pm [ed about 12 or 1pm] UK time is banished from the news – there’s not a mention of it this morning. It’s because it says that we have to just stop oil and gas expansion, we have to switch to alternative sources of energy now, that rich countries and energy companies have to dig into their pockets…
Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.
The Conservative Party has received more than £632,000 in new donations from individuals and firms tied to polluting industries, DeSmog can reveal.
New Electoral Commission records released today show that the bulk of the fossil-fuel linked funds came from Christopher Harborne, who donated £500,000 in the final quarter of 2022 – the joint-largest donation registered by the party during this period.
Further donations were made by a gas turbine manufacturer, a North Sea oil investor, a petrochemical engineering firm, and a peer with shares in major oil and gas companies.
The revelation comes at an important moment for UK climate policy. Sunak’s government is due to release an update to its net zero strategy next month after a High Court judge ruled it lacked sufficient detail.
The government recently opened up a new round of North Sea oil and gas licences for oil and gas exploration, at a time when the UN has warned that only drastic, immediate cuts to carbon emissions can avert a climate catastrophe.
Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said donations from polluting industries represented a “dangerous conflict of interest”.
Harborne is the owner of AML Global, an aviation fuel supplier operating in 1,200 locations worldwide with a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website. Harborne is also the CEO of Sheriff Global Group, which trades in private jets.
Before the pandemic, aviation emissions accounted for eight percent of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee, yet the government granted nearly £250 million in “free pollution permits” to the industry in 2021.
In the past, Harborne has provided gifts to Conservative MP Steve Baker, who co-founded an anti-green group of back benchers – the Net Zero Scrutiny Group – and who has said that a considerable amount of climate science is “actually still contestable”.
Harborne has also donated some £6.5 million to the Brexit Party – now Reform UK – whose co-founder Nigel Farage has called for a referendum on the government’s net zero targets and has labelled the focus on carbon emissions “alarmism”. Harborne has rarely spoken about the climate crisis, so the details of his personal views are unknown.
As revealed by DeSmog, Harborne also donated £515,000 to the Conservatives in the second quarter of 2022, when the party accepted a total of £651,000 from the aviation industry.
These donations landed in the same period as the government’s “Jet Zero Strategy”, published in July. The policy – which aims to cut UK aviation emissions to net-zero by 2050, allow travellers to fly “guilt-free” and supports further aviation sector growth – has been dismissed by environmental groups as “pure greenwash”.
Harborne and AML Global have been approached for comment.
The new Electoral Commission records show that the Conservatives received a further £15,000 in the final quarter of 2022 from Centrax Industries – a firm that specialises in manufacturing gas turbines. Centrax has now given more than £300,000 to the Conservatives since 2010.
DeSmog previously revealed that companies and individuals involved in North Sea oil and gas – including Centrax – donated a total of £419,900 to the Conservatives ahead of and during the government’s review into the future of the sector from July 2020 to March 2021.
Another Conservative donor in the final quarter of 2022 was Nova Venture Holdings, which donated £52,260. The company is wholly owned by Jacques Tohme, who describes himself as an “energy investor” on LinkedIn and lists his current role as co-founder and director of Tailwind Energy, an oil and gas company.
According to its website,Tailwind focuses on “maximis[ing] value in UK continental shelf (UKCS) opportunities”, an area which includes the North Sea. Serica Energy reportedly has an agreement in place to buy Tailwind, which is expected to complete in March. The acquisition will make Serica one of the 10 largest North Sea oil and gas producers.
A further £10,000 was given to the Conservatives by Alan Lusty – the CEO of Adi Group – adding to the £17,000 that he has given to the party since 2021. According to its website, Adi Group is a “leading supplier of engineering services to the petrochemical industry”. These services “add significant value to petrochemical engineering companies”, Adi says, though the firm claims “to work towards delivering a low-carbon economy” through its products. Adi also provides engineering services to the aerospace and automotive industries.
Finally, the Conservative Party received £50,000 from one of its peers – Lord John Nash – who also donated £5,000 to the local Wantage constituency party. According to his register of interests, Lord Nash holds shares in Royal Dutch Shell, the second largest investor-owned oil and gas company in the world by revenue, and BHP, the Australian-based mining, oil and gas firm.
Lord Nash, who has run several private equity funds, has donated more than £560,000 to the party since 2018.
The £632,260 accumulated by the Tories from fossil fuel interests and high polluters represents more than 13 percent of the party’s £4.8 million income during the final quarter of 2022.
Rishi Sunak himself received £141,000 from energy interests during his Conservative leadership campaign in the summer of 2022.
Jacques Tohme, Tailwind Energy, Centrax, Adi Group, Lord Nash and the Conservative Party have been approached for comment.
Additional research by Clare Carlile.
Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.
ENVIRONMENT activists ended their occupation of a 34,000-tonne oil rig today as it arrived in Norway.
But multibillion-pound energy corporation Shell is suing campaign group Greenpeace for more than £100,000 in compensation for costs incurred by the operation, including extra security.
Six activists began their occupation north of the Canary Islands as it was being towed to Haugesund in south-west Norway.
The occupiers boarded the rig from sea-going dinghies in a daring raid on January 31.
In a final stand at 10.30am at Haugesund today, the occupiers climbed the platform’s 125-metre flare boom and waved a banner saying “Stop drilling. Start paying.”
…
Original article by Kenny Stancil republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres made clear Monday that securing a livable planet depends on stopping the “bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.”
In a speech to the General Assembly, Guterres called for an end to “the merciless, relentless, senseless war on nature” that “is putting our world at immediate risk of hurtling past the 1.5°C temperature increase limit and now still moving towards a deadly 2.8°C.”
2023 must be “a year of reckoning,” the U.N. chief said as he outlined his priorities for the months ahead. “It must be a year of game-changing climate action. We need disruption to end the destruction. No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing.”
Scientists have warned repeatedly that scaling up the extraction and burning of coal, oil, and gas is incompatible with averting the most catastrophic consequences of the climate emergency. Nevertheless, hundreds of corporations—bolstered by trillions of dollars in annual public subsidies—are still planning to ramp up planet-heating pollution in the years ahead, prioritizing profits over the lives of those who will be harmed by the ensuing chaos.
“I have a special message for fossil fuel producers and their enablers scrambling to expand production and raking in monster profits: If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero, with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business,” said Guterres. “Your core product is our core problem.”
“We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence,” he added.
In order to halve global greenhouse gas emissions this decade, the U.N. chief said, the world needs “far more ambitious action to cut carbon pollution by speeding up the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy—especially in G20 countries—and de-carbonizing highest emitting industrial sectors—steel, cement, shipping, and aviation.”
In addition, he continued, the world needs “a Climate Solidarity Pact in which all big emitters make an extra effort to cut emissions, and wealthier countries mobilize financial and technical resources to support emerging economies in a common effort to keep 1.5°C alive.”
“We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence.”
“Climate action is impossible without adequate finance,” Guterres noted. “Developed countries know what they must do: At minimum, deliver on commitments made at the latest COP. Make good on the $100 billion promise to developing countries. Finish the job and deliver on the Loss and Damage Fund agreed in Sharm El-Sheikh. Double adaptation funding. Replenish the Green Climate Fund by COP28. Advance plans for early warning systems to protect every person on earth within five years. And stop subsidizing fossil fuels and pivot investments to renewables.”
Like the 26 annual U.N. climate meetings that preceded it, COP27 ended last November with no commitment to a swift and just global phase-out of coal, oil, and gas.
In an effort to avoid a repeat performance at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates this December, Guterres intends to convene a “Climate Ambition Summit” in September.
“The invitation is open to any leader—in government, business, or civil society,” Guterres said Monday. “But it comes with a condition: Show us accelerated action in this decade and renewed ambitious net-zero plans—or please don’t show up.”
“COP28 in December will set the stage for the first-ever Global Stocktake—a collective moment of truth—to assess where we are, and where we need to go in the next five years to reach the Paris goals,” he continued.
Guterres added that “humanity is taking a sledgehammer to our world’s rich biodiversity—with brutal and even irreversible consequences for people and planet. Our ocean is choked by pollution, plastics, and chemicals. And vampiric overconsumption is draining the lifeblood of our planet—water.”
In 2023, the world “must also bring the Global Biodiversity Framework to life and establish a clear pathway to mobilize sufficient resources,” said the U.N. chief. “And governments must develop concrete plans to repurpose subsidies that are harming nature into incentives for conservation and sustainability.”
“Climate action is the 21st century’s greatest opportunity to drive forward all the Sustainable Development Goals,” Guterres stressed. “A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a right we must make real for all.”
Guterres’ speech was not limited to the climate and biodiversity crises. He also emphasized the need for a “course correction” on devastating wars and raging inequality, calling for a new global economic architecture that foregrounds the needs of the poor instead of allowing the richest 1% to capture nearly half of all newly created wealth.
“This is not a time for tinkering,” said the U.N. chief. “It is a time for transformation.”
Original article by Kenny Stancil republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.