fossil fuels

AOC Says Climate Movement Must Become ‘Too Big and Too Radical to Ignore’

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 28th, 2022. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 28th, 2022. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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

“We have to send the message that some of us are going to be living on this planet 30, 40, 50 years from now and we will not take no for an answer.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a fiery speech to the tens of thousands of climate marchers who took to the streets of New York City on Sunday, telling the crowd that “it means something” when people show up in force because now is the time for elected leaders in the United States and around the world to finally show “urgency” on the issue of soaring global temperatures that are driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

“The way that we create urgency on the issue of climate,” declared Ocasio-Cortez, “is when we have people all across the world in the streets—in the streets!—showing up, demanding change, and demanding a cessation of what is killing us. We have to send the message that some of us are going to be living on this planet 30, 40, 50 years from now and we will not take no for an answer.”

Over 75,000 are estimated to have marched Sunday ahead of the rally that capped off days of organized action in New York and elsewhere in the country and around the world. All of the coordinated activities came ahead of this week’s United Nation’s General Assembly, including a Climate Ambition Summit initiated by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres slated for Wednesday.

Calling the climate crisis “the biggest issue of our time,” the New York Democrat said the organized movement demanding bold change “must be too big and too radical to ignore.”

Ocasio-Cortez touted her 2019 Green New Deal legislation that called for a 10-year time period for rapid decarbonization alongside a shift to renewable energy that also includes a just transition for workers impacted by the shift away from good-paying and reliable jobs in the oil, gas, and coal industries.

“We are demanding a change,” she said, “so that working people get better jobs and lower bills under a renewable energy economy—that is what we are here to make sure we achieve!”

Further, Ocasio-Cortez slammed the U.S. government under the Biden administration for approving a record number of oil and gas drilling leases and told the crowd “that has got to end today” as she applauded the climate movement for starting to “crack the grip” which the fossil fuel industry holds on the nation’s political economy.

“That’s because of you,” she said to those in the crowd. “Don’t let the cynics win. The cynics want us to think that this isn’t worth it. The cynics want us to believe that we can’t win. The cynics want us to believe that organizing doesn’t matter; that our political system doesn’t matter; that our economy doesn’t matter. But we’re here to say that we organize out of hope! We organize out of commitment! We organize out of love! We organize out of the beauty of our future! And we will not give up. We will not let go! We will not let cynicism to prevail!”

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

Continue ReadingAOC Says Climate Movement Must Become ‘Too Big and Too Radical to Ignore’

The United States and Canada Are Among the World’s Top 5 ‘Planet Wreckers,’ New Fossil Fuel Report Contends

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Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog.

Just ahead of U.N. climate summit in New York City, analysis calls on governments to halt planned gas and oil projects

Climate activists assembled at the White House during the People vs Fossil Fuels week of direct action in Oct. 2021. Credit: Dana Drugmand
Climate activists assembled at the White House during the People vs Fossil Fuels week of direct action in Oct. 2021. Credit: Dana Drugmand

United Nations chief António Guterres has called on nations to arrive at September 20’s high-level climate summit in New York City with firm commitments for ending fossil fuel production.

So far, however, the world’s top 20 oil and gas extractors have enough production planned to generate 173 billion tons of carbon pollution by 2050 — more than enough to blow past their Paris Agreement commitments and heat the world well beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above historical temperatures. The greatest polluter among them will be the United States.

Those are some of the findings in a new report from the group Oil Change International, which has found that these 20 countries — dubbed the “planet wreckers” — are going to be responsible for almost 90 percent of the expected carbon emissions from planned oil and gas projects between 2023 and 2050.

“A handful of the world’s richest nations are gambling our global future by failing to act and ignoring the scientific calls and evidence that we need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels,” said Kelly Trout, co-director of research at Oil Change International, who co-authored the report with colleague Romain Ioualalen.

“Most countries are unfortunately still moving in the wrong direction,” she said.

Oil and gas projects already planned by these nations will generate climate-heating CO2 emissions equivalent to 1,082 new coal plants, according to the report.  

Based on their current plans, just five countries — the U.S. Canada, Norway, Australia, and the UK — will account for 51 percent of all new oil and gas projects through 2050, Trout found in her research.

“Among all of the countries that we call out in the report, these are the five that have the greatest economic means and capacity to actually be phasing out their oil and gas production the fastest,” Trout said.

The U.S. is both the largest historical carbon emitter and the world’s top oil and gas producer. Dubbed “planet wrecker in chief” in the report, it is on course to drive the most carbon pollution from planned oil and gas expansion by far. New oil and gas extraction in the U.S. will account for more than one-third of all planned projects over the next 25 years, creating 72.5 billion tons of CO2 emissions through 2050. 

Canada, which is on track for 18.6 billion tons of cumulative carbon pollution through 2050, came in second. 

Russia, the world’s second largest gas extractor and third largest oil producer, ranked third with 17.3 billion tons of CO2 expected from new production through 2050. Iran ranked fourth with 9.7 billion tons, and China rounded out the top five at 8.9 billion tons of expected carbon pollution.   

Trout was not surprised by the outsized role of the U.S. “It’s a reflection of the reality that the oil and gas industry’s expansion has been unchecked for many years now in the United States,” she said. “President Biden has put very few limits on the oil and gas industry, and has even enabled the sort of expansion that we’re warning about in this report.”

Since the beginning of 2023, the Biden administration has approved construction of multiple liquid natural gas export facilities. 

Among the moves that have further outraged environmentalists, in March, the administration approved the Willow Project, a major ConocoPhilips oil drilling venture in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a federal wilderness on Alaska’s North Shore. Estimates put up to 600 million barrels of oil in the area where the project will be located.

Just two weeks later, at the end of March, the Department of Interior held a large oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, leasing 313 tracts across 1.6 million acres.

In June, as part of the debt ceiling deal negotiated between congressional Republicans and the White House, federal agencies fast-tracked Mountain Valley Pipeline, which will carry fracked gas about 300 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia.   

President Biden has also resisted calls from climate advocates to formally declare a climate emergency, even as the annual number of billion-dollar climate disasters continues to mount. Among them: Phoenix, Arizona set a new record for enduring 31 consecutive days over 110 degrees Fahrenheit, Vermont suffered its worst flooding in nearly a century, and the Hawaiian city of Lahaina was destroyed by one of the deadliest wildfires in U.S. history. 

In an August interview on the Weather Channel, Biden said he had “practically” declared a climate emergency, a statement that angered climate activists seeking more concrete action. 

Against this backdrop, tens of thousands are expected to take to the streets of New York on September 17 for a “March to End Fossil Fuels,” some with the explicit demand that President Biden stop U.S. expansion of oil and gas development. Mid-September actions and protests are also being planned in cities and towns worldwide.

“Thousands of folks will be marching, not just in New York City but across the world to just say our future is on the line,” Trout said, “and a livable future for us all is completely incompatible with the expansion and continuation of the fossil fuel industry.”

Original article by Dana Drugmand republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingThe United States and Canada Are Among the World’s Top 5 ‘Planet Wreckers,’ New Fossil Fuel Report Contends

‘No Tennis on a Dead Planet’: Climate Activists Disrupt US Open

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

“The climate is already more disruptive than any activists can possibly be,” said a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion.

A group of climate activists wearing shirts that read “End Fossil Fuels” delayed the semifinal match of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships by around 45 minutes Thursday night in an effort to call greater public attention to the planetary emergency that is wreaking deadly havoc worldwide.

One of the demonstrators glued his bare feet to the concrete in the stands at New York City’s Arthur Ashe Stadium, requiring additional effort by medical personnel and police to remove him and take him into custody.

The protesters were associated with the climate group Extinction Rebellion NYC, which said in a statement Thursday that there is “no tennis on a dead planet.”

“The climate and ecological crisis threatens everything on our planet, including sports,” the group said. “This action and similar actions are the response of a movement that has no other recourse than to engage in unconventional means of protest to bring mass attention to the greatest emergency of our time.”

Nineteen-year-old Coco Gauff won the semifinal match after it resumed. In an interview following her victory, Gauff said she supports “preaching about what you feel and what you believe in.”

“It was done in a peaceful way, so I can’t get too mad at it,” she said of the demonstration. “Obviously I don’t want it to happen when I’m winning up 6-4, 1-0, and I wanted the momentum to keep going. But hey, if that’s what they felt they needed to do to get their voices heard, I can’t really get upset at it.”

The U.S. Open—which counts JPMorgan, a major funder of fossil fuels, as an official partner—kicked off late last month amid growing concerns about the impact of extreme heat on the sport.

During a match earlier this week, Russian player Daniil Medvedev looked into a courtside camera between points and warned that an athlete is “gonna die” from the scorching temperatures.

The Associated Press reported that “it got so hot and humid at the U.S. Open on Tuesday that the folks in charge adopted a new policy for the rest of this year’s tournament: They will partially shut the Arthur Ashe Stadium roof in extreme conditions to offer some extra shade.”

“An Associated Press analysis showed the average high temperatures felt during the U.S. Open and the three other major tennis tournaments steadily have gotten higher and more dangerous in recent decades, reflecting the climate change that created record heat waves around the globe this summer,” the outlet noted. “For athletes, it can keep them from playing their best and, worse, increases the likelihood of heat-related illness.”

Earlier this week, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that this summer has been the hottest on record, and a separate global report led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record high last year as fossil fuel extraction continued.

A recent survey found that experts on social movements believe disruptive protests of the kind launched by Extinction Rebellion are important to the success of a particular cause, even though the initial public reaction to such tactics can often be negative. The U.S. Open protest drew loud boos from attendees.

Miles Grant, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson, said Thursday that “the climate is already more disruptive than any activists can possibly be.”

“Just look at the U.S. Open and other big tennis events—year after year, the average temperatures have been rising, making it hotter and more dangerous for the players and spectators,” said Grant. “At some point, there will be fewer outdoor sporting events due to excessive heat.”

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

Continue Reading‘No Tennis on a Dead Planet’: Climate Activists Disrupt US Open

Climate crisis made spate of Canada wildfires twice as likely, scientists find

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/climate-change-canada-wildfires-twice-as-likely

Canadian wildfire 2023
Canadian wildfire 2023

Burning of fossil fuels made fires at least twice as likely, and the fire-prone weather at least 20% more intense, study shows

The conditions that caused Canada’s extreme spate of wildfires this year, which resulted in parts of the US and Canada to be blanketed in toxic smoke, were made at least twice as likely due to the human-caused climate crisis, scientists have found.

The 2023 Canadian wildfire season has been the largest, and most devastating, on record, with nearly 14m hectares (34m acres) burned, an area larger than Greece. The extent of these fires, more than double the size of the previous record, caused more than a dozen fatalities and thousands of evacuations, and sent a plume of smoke that unfurled as far as Norway and, for a time in June, turned the sky above New York City orange.

Scientists have now analyzed the conditions that caused the fires that raged in the Canadian province of Quebec between May and July and found that the climate crisis, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, made them at least twice as likely, and the fire-prone weather at least 20% more intense.

The attribution study, conducted by a coalition of scientists in Canada, the UK and the Netherlands, found that while the fire-prone weather conditions were unprecedented, they are no longer unexpected and will become more commonplace as the worlds continues to heat up.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/climate-change-canada-wildfires-twice-as-likely

Continue ReadingClimate crisis made spate of Canada wildfires twice as likely, scientists find

As Biden Hails Inflation Reduction Act, Climate Groups Say He Must Stop Boosting Fossil Fuels

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Extinction Rebellion protest, banner reads NO MORE PLANET WRECKING FOSSIL FUELS DEMAND RENEWABLE ENERGY
Extinction Rebellion protest, banner reads NO MORE PLANET WRECKING FOSSIL FUELS DEMAND RENEWABLE ENERGY

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

“Unless he drastically changes course, Biden’s legacy will forever be marred by his failure to directly address fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis,” said one campaigner.

Climate campaigners on Tuesday responded to U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech touting the clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act on the eve of its first anniversary by condemning his administration’s fossil fuel expansion and calling on him to declare a climate emergency.

Biden has repeatedly hailed the $368 billion in clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) while claiming last week that he has “practically” declared a climate emergency. On Tuesday, the president delivered his remarks at Ingeteam, a company that makes wind turbine systems and says it plans to manufacture electric vehicle charging stations and hire 100 workers.

“This is happening across the state,” Biden asserted. “It is a direct result of the clean energy investments I signed into law a year ago. Folks, as I’ve said for a long time, when I think climate, I think jobs.”

Progressive critics pushed back against the president’s claims.

“President Biden can talk until he’s blue in the face about investments in clean energy, but as long as he continues to approve massive new fossil fuel projects throughout the country, we keep moving backward on the path to a livable climate future,” Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. “No amount of investment in wind turbines, solar panels, or faulty carbon capture schemes will protect our environment or stabilize our climate if we simultaneously extract and burn more and more oil and gas.”

“The Alaska Willow drilling project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a plethora of new LNG export terminals—these are among the features of Biden’s energy legacy that will doom us to climate catastrophe if he doesn’t change course now,” Hauter continued. “Meanwhile, President Biden’s massive investments in unproven, impossibly expensive carbon capture schemes serve only to allow the fossil fuel industry to keep doing what it does best—drill, frack, pump, and pollute—under the premise that a mysterious, magical technology will somehow clean it all up.”

“These faulty initiatives are sucking away precious time and money that could otherwise be spent on legitimate clean energy projects like wind, solar, and building efficiency,” she added.

Oil Change International U.S. campaign manager Allie Rosenbluth called the IRA “one of the biggest handouts to the fossil fuel industry in U.S. history.”

“With tens of billions of dollars in giveaways for the oil and gas industry, provisions expanding fossil fuel leasing, and incentives for dangerous and unproven technologies designed to keep the fossil fuel industry in business like carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and direct air capture, this law will not accomplish what we need to have a livable future.”

“Unless he drastically changes course, Biden’s legacy will forever be marred by his failure to directly address fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis,” Rosenbluth added.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said in a statement that “one year after President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the need is more urgent than ever for him to declare a climate emergency, phase out fossil fuels, and fast-track distributed energy systems.”

CBD energy justice director Jean Su argued that “it’s clear that the IRA isn’t enough.”

“This summer has been an absolute horror show of the catastrophic consequences of burning fossil fuels. President Biden needs to run, not walk, away from the climate catastrophe of fossil fuels,” she asserted. “Every time his administration approves another oil or gas project, it pushes us toward a more hellish future.”

“Biden should use all his executive powers to speed the end of the fossil fuel era, because every tenth of a degree matters,” Su added. “Unless he does, these projects will perpetuate human suffering, environmental racism, and wildlife extinction. They’ll just keep on cooking the planet.”

The groups’ calls come ahead of next month’s March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City, part of a September 15 global mass mobilization for climate action.

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

Continue ReadingAs Biden Hails Inflation Reduction Act, Climate Groups Say He Must Stop Boosting Fossil Fuels