Wind turbines at Loftsome Bridge, East Yorkshire, with Drax Power station in the distance
CLIMATE campaigners have condemned Labour MPs for backing legislation that extends massive subsidies to biomass giant Drax, despite the company’s high carbon emissions and forest destruction.
The law, passed in a committee vote on Monday night, allows indefinite subsidies for wood-burning power stations, undoing stricter 2019 emissions standards that would have disqualified Drax.
In 2024, Drax burned 7.3 million tonnes of wood — much from the total felling of forests in North America and Europe — and received £869m in public subsidies while making nearly £1.1bn in profit.
Of the 15 MPs present at the vote, all 11 Labour members backed the measure, while three Tories and one Lib Dem opposed it.
Campaigners accused the government of greenwashing and prioritising polluters over real climate solutions.
The bank has funded the companies behind a controversial pipeline and aggressive oil expansion as part of their commitment to fighting climate change
Barclays has been branded “totally dishonest” by one of its investors for calling tens of billions of dollars for fossil fuel companies “sustainable finance”.
The UK high street bank says it is helping to address climate change by raising $1 trillion in sustainable and transition finance by 2030. This includes sustainability-linked loans and bonds, in which a company agrees to meet certain climate-related targets or else face a higher interest rate.
But these targets can be weak and the penalties for failing to meet them paltry. The company can also use the money raised how it sees fit, meaning supposedly sustainable finance could fund polluting activities.
Andrew Harper of Epworth, an investment manager owned by the Methodist church that invests in Barclays, said: “We’re concerned because the bank is making such a substantial claim and the public thinks the climate emergency is being worked towards being solved. Meanwhile, the problem is getting worse and worse. We think it’s totally dishonest.
“If they are calling the financing of any fossil fuel companies sustainable finance, that to me is greenwash.”
Barclays said: “We are committed to being transparent and report separately on the green finance, sustainable finance and the sustainability-linked finance mobilised towards our $1 trillion target, so stakeholders and investors have a clear understanding of what we are reporting.” It said it set out very clear requirements for energy clients’ targets and transition plans in order to access finance.
‘Deeply problematic’ deals
Barclays helped raise $41bn in sustainability-linked finance for fossil fuel companies last year, according to an analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism of data from LSEG, the financial markets group. The $41bn figure covers the total value of the deals Barclays worked on alongside other banks. Barclays itself counts only the funding it is directly responsible for, which it said was $10.9bn across all sectors last year.
Katharina Lindmeier, responsible investments manager at the publicly owned workplace pension scheme Nest, which also invests in Barclays, said TBIJ’s findings were “very concerning”. She added: “We’ll be raising this research with their management team directly at the next opportunity.
“Regulators are looking closely at the issue of greenwashing and if there is any uncertainty, it’s better to be cautious than to mislead customers. Any loans which help companies expand oil and gas infrastructure should not be classed as sustainable.”
The Financial Conduct Authority, the UK regulator, wrote to banks last year highlighting concerns about this type of loan, including weak incentives, potential conflicts of interest, and low ambition. It said that these may lead to accusations of greenwashing.
Anders Schelde, chief investment officer of AkademikerPension, another Barclays investor, said sustainability-linked finance for oil and gas companies is “in most cases deeply problematic”. He said: “We don’t count sustainability-linked bonds and loans as green investments in our own accounting because we know there are so many problems with them. The penalties are low and the targets often insufficient.”
Last year, Barclays helped raise $3bn worth of sustainability-linked loans and bonds for Enbridge, a company that is dramatically expanding oil and gas infrastructure across North America.
Enbridge is behind the construction of a controversial 1,000-mile pipeline that cuts through Indigenous land in the US to pump tar sands oil. It paid US police to crack down on protesters and has been fined millions of dollars for repeated environmental violations.
Barclays classifies the Enbridge debt as sustainable because the company has set a target to cut emissions from its own operations. In part, it intends to do this by using solar power to pump oil through its pipelines.
“The real source of emissions from a company like Enbridge will be from the oil and gas its pipelines help transport,” said Jeanne Martin from responsible investment charity ShareAction. “We do not need greener pipelines, we need to stop the reckless expansion of the fossil fuel industry.
“If the conditions that a bank sets to provide financing to oil and gas transport companies don’t tackle oil and gas, the bank will be accused of greenwashing.”
Barclays also helped raise a $2.8bn sustainability-linked loan for Harbour Energy, the UK’s largest oil and gas producer. Harbour extracted the equivalent of nearly 70m barrels of oil last year, which if burned would produce the equivalent of eight coal-fired power stations’ annual emissions.
Scientists agree that developing any new oil and gas fields will derail climate targets and push global heating beyond 1.5 degrees – which the UN says will threaten lives, food sources and economies worldwide.
It seems that Harbour is aggressively exploring for new oil and gas as it hopes to extract a further 880 million barrels of reserves in the coming decades. It does not appear from Harbour’s public statements that the company has any plans to shift its focus to renewables.
Yet Barclays’ loan to Harbour Energy is called sustainable because the company has committed to reducing emissions from the process of extracting oil and gas. This, however, takes no account of the vast majority of Harbour’s emissions, which are generated from burning the oil and gas itself.
Enbridge paid US police to crack down on protesters opposing its Line 3 pipeline Nicole Neri/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The notorious oil trader Trafigura also benefited from more than $5.4bn in loans that Barclays called sustainable finance. Counting its supply chain and all the emissions generated by the oil it trades and transports, Trafigura was responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions last year than Spain.
Trafigura’s interest payments are linked to certain sustainability targets, including a pledge to cut emissions – but only from its own operations rather than the burning of the fuels it trades and transports. This accounts for about 1% of the company’s total emissions.
Trafigura said Barclays was one of 54 banks involved in the deal, and said “sustainability-linked loans are an important tool in incentivising reductions in emissions”. It added that its direct emissions were less than 1% of Spain’s. While it reports its indirect emissions, it does not consider all of them “to be within our current sphere of influence”.
Enbridge said it takes climate change seriously and is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. It said sustainability-linked finance plays an important role in meeting emission-reduction goals and supporting the transition to a lower carbon economy. The company also said that the 1,000-mile Line 3 pipeline had local and tribal approvals and met the strictest environmental standards, and that payments to law enforcement were made and administered via a third party.
Harbour did not respond to a request for comment.
Barclays said: “Sustainability linked loans and bonds are an important sustainable finance tool, incentivising borrowers, particularly in hard to abate sectors, to achieve sustainability objectives over time.”
Net-zero banking
Barclays has committed to cut its emissions – including of the companies it finances – to net zero by 2050. To reach this target, it will have to stop providing money to companies that refuse to shift away from fossil fuels.
Enbridge’s Line 3 project cuts through Indigenous land Tim Evans/Bloomberg via Getty Images
But a report out today shows that the bank’s funding for fossil fuels increased in 2023 from 2022, which troubled shareholders who have been urging it to reduce lending in line with its climate targets. Barclays was Europe’s top funder of the fossil fuel industry last year, according to the report led by the Rainforest Action Network.
Lindmeier, the Nest investment manager, said: “We want to see Barclays immediately reduce its financing to companies behind new fossil fuel expansion. Any delays could leave the company more exposed to bad loans and potentially cost them millions of pounds.”
Laura Hillis from the Church of England pensions board, another Barclays investor, said: “We are looking for banks to produce a clear climate plan and to see the commitments carry through into lending decisions. Our concern is that these fossil fuel financing figures show that is not happening at the pace we’d like.”
Climate-conscious investors have been putting pressure on Barclays to make good on its net-zero pledge and earlier this year the bank committed to stop providing specific project finance for oil and gas expansion and related infrastructure.
However, less than 2% of Barclays’ funding for oil and gas last year fell under the label of “project finance”. Almost all of it comes in the form of general, unrestricted finance for the companies undertaking those projects.
“Barclays’ new oil and gas policy is an important step forward for the bank but it should have gone so much further,” said Martin from ShareAction, which brought together Barclays shareholders to urge the bank to restrict lending to oil and gas companies.
“Ultimately, the bank has kept the right to finance companies that have plans to massively expand the fossil fuel industry with no strings attached, and that’s a real problem.”
Southampton University slammed after openDemocracy uncovered its involvement in Exxon’s ‘greenwashing’ project
A senior professor has accused his own university of betraying its values by working with ExxonMobil on a project that has been condemned as greenwash.
Ian Williams, professor in applied environmental science at the University of Southampton, made the allegations after openDemocracy revealed that Exxon had made misleading claims about capturing carbon at the UK’s biggest oil refinery at Fawley in Hampshire.
We reported last month that Paul Greenwood, Exxon’s UK lead, had admitted that the oil giant would need a “magic wand” to deliver the project, which has no funding and no licence to store carbon.
Exxon refers prominently to its collaboration with the University of Southampton in publications about the scheme.
Williams suggested the university had been “fooled” into joining forces with the oil giant to launch the ‘Solent Cluster’, an industrial decarbonisation scheme focused on CCS.
Lindsay-Marie Armstrong, the academic cluster lead at the University of Southampton, has joined senior Exxon executives at several events to promote the scheme, including a reception at the House of Commons in February.
Williams hit out at the partnership during a lecture entitled “Working with the enemy: Why universities should not work with ‘Big Oil’” on 24 April, as part of the University of Southampton’s annual Green Week.
He said Exxon had a long history of undermining climate science and funding groups that promoted climate scepticism, asking: “Why does the University of Southampton work with companies that operate against our values and deny our research data?”
Williams pointed out the university’s collaboration with Exxon is at odds with two of its stated core values: its commitment to “embed environmental sustainability in everything we do” and its pledge to work with partners to “improve the environment”.
He added that his decision to speak out means he is “not very popular in some quarters of the university” and might be branded a “rogue academic”.
But Southampton University’s decision to partner with Exxon has also been criticised by many who study there. Heidi Wheatley, a second-year environmental science student, told openDemocracy that “the university’s relationship with the fossil fuel industry undermines my whole reasoning for studying this subject at this institution”.
Wheatley added: “Students are already calling for the university to re-evaluate its relationship with the industry through its research activities and are petitioning the university to withdraw its multimillion-pound investments in fossil fuel companies. I implore the university to listen to its students and live up to its own strategic commitments to sustainability.”
Williams quoted from openDemocracy’s investigation during his Green Week lecture, including our revelation that Exxon had so far refused to commit its own money to build the CCS plant and had instead focused investment on increasing diesel production at the refinery, spending £800m to produce an extra six million litres a day.
He also quoted Doug Parr, chief scientist for Greenpeace UK, who told openDemocracy that Exxon’s CCS scheme “stands out as greenwashing”.
openDemocracy revealed in November that fossil companies had ploughed more than £147m into British universities in seven years.
Williams said: “Universities must be robust and healthy enough to resist commercial lobbying and greenwash. We must not be fooled again.”
Urging Southampton University to extend its ban on working with tobacco companies to fossil fuel firms, he added: “Universities should say no to collaboration with fossil fuel companies, no to funding from or with fossil fuel companies, no to green washing, no to climate washing.”
He also recommended the university commit to “not work[ing] on any form of greenwash project”, including “CCS” and “blue hydrogen” – a product made from natural gas, where most of the carbon dioxide from the gas is captured and stored. Blue hydrogen has come under fire from scientists, who have branded it a distraction from proven low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels based on renewable energy.
Williams also called on Southampton University to sign up to the People and Planet Fossil Free Campaign, which demands universities stop investing in and accepting funds from fossil fuel companies.
A University of Southampton spokesperson did not respond to any of Williams’ recommendations when contacted by openDemocracy.
Instead, they said: “Decarbonisation necessitates engagement with the sector that produces carbon and universities have a vital role to play in applying knowledge and expertise to address real areas of environmental concern.
“This is what the Solent Cluster was set up and receives government funding for, with our role here to work alongside 120 organisations and businesses, including nine local governments and three other universities.
“We uphold our value to embed environmental sustainability in everything that we do and require that all outputs from research undertaken with energy companies – and industry more widely – can be published, following our stated policies for responsible and open research.”
An Exxon spokesperson said the company would give further detail on the CCS project “in due course”.
Another recent openDemocracy investigation found that more than £281m of anonymous donations had poured into so-called Russell Group universities, including Southampton, since 2017. This prompted more than 120 academics, politicians and campaigners to sign an open letter calling for transparency over university funding in the UK.
The universities’ secrecy over donations means any potential conflicts of interest and commercial influences, including those related to fossil fuel production, remain hidden.
Some universities routinely invite fossil fuel companies to attend private meetings after donating millions of pounds.
30+ young people, scientists and supporters occupy Science Museum’s new climate gallery in protest over its sponsorship by coal-producing conglomerate Adani
Group announce plan to remain over weekend ahead of the opening to school groups next week
Naturalist Chris Packham says sponsorship deal is “beyond greenwash – it’s grotesque” and attends to support the protesters
Science Museum criticised over ties to conglomerate involved in manufacturing drones for the Israeli military amidst bombardment of Gaza and destructive coal mining operations in India and Australia opposed by Indigenous groups
This evening, more than 30 protesters led by young people from Youth Action for Climate Justice and members of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion have occupied the Science Museum’s new climate gallery, Energy Revolution, over its sponsorship by the coal giant and arms manufacturer, Adani. Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham joined the group as they began their protest, with scientists and young people now intending to remain in the museum over the weekend, with the first school visits to the gallery beginning on Monday.
Chris Packham, who famously claimed that peacefully breaking the law is the ethically responsible thing to do when it comes to protecting the planet, told the protesters: “For me science is the art of understanding truth and beauty and a lot of that beauty lies in the natural world. Science tells us that the fossil fuel industry is responsible for the accelerating destruction of our natural world. The Science Museum is a place to spark imagination, to provide answers but also to encourage us to ask questions. The question I’m asking today is a big one, “why on earth are we allowing a destructive industry to sponsor an educational exhibition whilst simultaneously setting fire to young peoples futures?” This is beyond greenwash – it’s grotesque. We urgently need an ‘Energy Revolution’ to steer us away from the course of planetary destruction on which we are heading. We need a rapid, just transition to renewables – that revolution means an end to coal, and starts with the young people and scientists occupying this space this evening. Science tells us the truth, and the truth is that we must change.”
Naturalist Chris Packham at the Science Museum occupation 12 April 2024. Image: Extinction Rebellion.
The Energy Revolution gallery opened to the public just a few weeks ago amidst protest, with over 150 people taking part in a day of creative action. A few days earlier, guests arriving for the private VIP launch were greeted by protesters as they arrived, as well as the museum throwing a lavish dinner for the Adani Group’s billionaire chairman, Gautam Adani, with the Adani Group’s logo plastered on screens around the room.
To coincide with today’s protest, activists have released a new video exposing the truth behind the misleading claims made by Gautam Adani during his speech at the opening of the gallery. While he discussed the energy transition from oil and gas, he neglected to mention coal, the industry from which the Adani Group derives 60% of its revenue. The Science Museum has attempted to defend its sponsorship deal by claiming it has only partnered with the Green Energy division, although evidence clearly shows that it is directly linked to Adani’s coal business and that the museum has maintained a relationship with the main Adani Group.
At 2pm on Saturday, the occupiers will invite members of the public to join them for an interactive assembly inside the gallery to discuss alternatives to toxic fossil fuel sponsorship at the Science Museum. The group plans to tell the public the truth about the gallery’s sponsor and the urgency of keeping fossil fuels in the ground for a liveable future. Throughout their occupation, the protesters are also constructing sculptures of fragments of coal as a poignant reminder of Adani’s core polluting business.
Ian McDermott, a Chemistry teacher who will no longer organise school trips to the museum, has said: “For decades I ran a couple of trips to the museum a year, but I just don’t think it’s in the students’ interests to engage with the greenwashing of the companies destroying their futures.”
Protest placard reads Greenwash detected
Adani is the world’s largest private developer of new coal mines and coal-fired power plants, including Australia’s largest, the Carmichael Coal Mine built on Wangan and Jagalingou ancestral land. This ongoing investment in coal mining and power flies in the face of the scientific warning that most fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned and emitted if global warming increase is limited to 1.5°C, or even 2°C above pre industrial levels.
Anya, a young person occupying the gallery said: “To have a coal company sponsoring an exhibition on the future of energy is blatantly deceiving. Through this sponsorship deal, the Science Museum is helping Adani attach itself to the image of a positive and sustainable future when in reality it is a coal giant, weapons manufacturer and genocide supporter. It’s plain wrong for the Science Museum to be deceiving visitors, including young people like me, when it comes to the climate crisis.”
This is not the only instance of the museum welcoming fossil fuel companies to sponsor and influence its science education programmes and galleries. The Museum’s STEM Training Academy, which aims to support teachers in delivering science education, is sponsored by oil and gas giant BP, while the Museum’s interactive children’s gallery is named after Norwegian oil and gas company, Equinor.
Dr. Aaron Thierry, a scientist, who has researched climate impacts in the Arctic, is among those currently occupying the museum: “It’s not just Adani’s brand that the science museum is greenwashing, they’re also allowing the oil and gas giants BP and Equinor to sponsor their exhibits, disregarding the fact that these companies continue to expand fossil fuel production against the warnings of climate scientists. The latest science has shown we must leave the majority of fossil fuels unburned to prevent catastrophic changes to our climate. That an institution like the Science Museum is working with such rouge companies is a disgrace. The museum’s management needs to follow the example of Britain’s other leading cultural institutions and drop all ties to the fossil fuel industry.“
Scientists for Extinction Rebellion and Youth Action for Climate Justice (who have led this action) are members of Fossil Free Science Museum Coalition who are campaigning for the Science Museum to end its sponsorship by fossil fuel companies.
Youth Action for Climate Justice (formerly UKSCN London) is a radical youth organisation mobilising for climate justice. YACJ aims to create a new generation of young activists who are educated about society and the change we need, in order to work with other movements to change the system we live in. The group was previously part of Youth Strike for Climate Movement and coordinated the London youth climate strikes in 2019 and 2020, which brought thousands of young people to the streets of London. Instagram | Twitter
Other groups involved are: International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India), India Labour Solidarity (UK), Students for Survival; and numerous Extinction Rebellion groups.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and fellow activists arrive to block the main entrances of the Swedish Parliament during a protest due to the lack of action from the Swedish authorities, on March 11, 2024, in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)
“Sweden is unfortunately not unique in completely ignoring the climate crisis,” Thunberg said.
Greta Thunberg and over 40 other activists blocked the entrance to the Swedish parliament on Monday, demanding action on the climate crisis.
The activists held signs that said “Climate Justice Now,” and Thunberg expressed her dissatisfaction with how the Swedish government is handling the global emergency.
“Sweden is unfortunately not unique in completely ignoring the climate crisis, not treating it as an emergency at all. But actively trying to greenwash, deceive, and lie in order to make it seem like they are doing enough and that they are moving in the right direction, when in fact the exact opposite is happening,” Thunberg said.
Right now young people are blocking the Swedish parliament to draw attention to that the climate crisis and underlying social injustices are killing people, and the situation is only getting worse. We've had enough of those in power not listening to the science and our voices 1/6
Thunberg went on to say that Sweden is “very good at greenwashing,” even though the country has “very high emissions per capita.” She said the country cannot claim to be a climate leader.
“The climate justice movement has for decades tried to get our message across, and scientists and the most affected people have been sounding the alarm for even longer than that,” she said. “But the people in power have not been listening. They have been actively ignoring and silence those speaking out.”
Thunberg has faced the risk of going to jail over her climate protests repeatedly in recent years, and she has continued to sound the alarm that countries are not doing enough to fight the climate crisis.
The Swedish government has been facing intense criticism recently for enacting policies that will likely increase its carbon emissions. Thunberg vowed to continue her resistance to such policies.
“The climate crisis is only going to get worse and so it is all our responsibilities, all of those who have an opportunity to act must do so. We encourage everyone who can to join us and to join the climate justice movement,” Thunberg said.
Outside court in London, Greta Thunberg says “We must remember who the real enemy is … who our laws are meant to protect.” Quoted from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68166341
Wind turbines at Loftsome Bridge, East Yorkshire, with Drax Power station in the distance
