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Tag: renewable energy

  • Top Climate Scientists to Biden: ‘Follow the Science, Stop Fossil Fuels’

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    Original article by Andrea Germanos republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Note that the original article was published 7 April, 2022.

    U.S. climate scientist Peter Kalmus is seen outside a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles on April 6, 2022. Along with several others, he locked himself to the front door of the building and was ultimately arrested as they engaged in civil disobedience as part Scientist Rebellion’s week of action. (Photo: Scientist Rebellion)

    The letter to President Joe Biden came amid a week of “scientist-led civil disobedience” demanding urgent climate action.

    In a powerful direct appeal to President Joe Biden urging him to follow through on his vow to listen to science, a group of over 275 scientists on Thursday called on the U.S. leader to urgently ditch fossil fuels and lead the country to a renewable energy transition.

    Written “in this moment of climate emergency… with utmost urgency,” the letter to Biden was coordinated by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch along with noted U.S. climate experts including Peter Kalmus, Sandra Steingraber, Robert Howarth, Mark Jacobson, and Michael Mann.

    As Common Dreams previously reported, the scientists leading the effort unveiled the letter last month, seeking a critical mass of signatures to push back against the administration’s move to further oil and gas production as nations look to reduce their dependence on Russian fuels in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

    Related Content Scientists to Biden: World Needs ‘Rapid Transition From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy’ Jessica Corbett

    The letter–bluntly declaring “Follow the Science, Stop Fossil Fuels”–was officially sent to the White House Thursday, landing amid a week of “scientist-led civil disobedience” featuring strikes and occupations in dozens of countries to highlight the urgency of the ecological and climate crisis.

    In their letter to Biden, the expert group cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released in February cataloging the “unfolding climate catastrophe” as evidence of the need for swift action. Millions worldwide, including within the U.S., are already facing climate impacts, the IPCC report notes, including water scarcity and extreme weather events.

    “These problems will only accelerate as we continue our reliance on fossil fuels,” the scientists wrote. “And, this is on top of the significant health and environmental justice impacts that power plants, export facilities, and other fossil fuel infrastructure have on neighboring communities.”

    https://twitter.com/howarth_cornell/status/1512117528247803904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1512117528247803904%7Ctwgr%5E898c3b748cb07e15bd577f4bd50e6f4be3bb34e7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2022%2F04%2F07%2Ftop-climate-scientists-biden-follow-science-stop-fossil-fuels

    “As the IPCC report indicated, the scientific evidence is overwhelming that we must act now,” they wrote, “we simply do not have time to waste.”

    Firmly rejecting Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s framing of the U.S. being “on war footing” in pushing for more domestic fossil fuel production, the scientists told Biden that such urgency must instead be directed at “building a renewable energy economy” and that he must exercise his “executive authority to redirect these massive investments, mobilize the country, and rally the global community around a program of energy security through a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”

    “We urge you to lead boldly, take on the fossil fuel titans, and rally the country towards a renewable energy future,” the scientists wrote.

    Related Content Dozens Arrested as Scientists Worldwide Mobilize to Demand ‘Climate Revolution’ Jake Johnson

    Lead signatory and climate scientist Kalmus was among those taking part in Scientist Rebellion direct actions on Wednesday; he was ultimately arrested after locking himself to the front door of a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles.

    He was driven by what he sees as “humanity heading directly toward climate disaster” and “currently on track to lose everything we love.”

    In an op-ed published at The Guardian Wednesday explaining why he was willing to risk arrest, Kalmus wrote, “If everyone could see what I see coming, society would switch into climate emergency mode and end fossil fuels in just a few years.”

    Original article by Andrea Germanos republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Note that the original article was published 7 April, 2022.

  • Campaigners Rip Shell CEO’s ‘Cynical Case’ Against Ditching Fossil Fuels

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

    A large display from the environmental group Fossil Free London is seen during a climate protest

    A large display from the environmental group Fossil Free London is seen during a climate protest in London on April 24, 2023.  (Photo: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)

    “The only ‘danger’ Shell would see in cutting production is to their eye-watering profits,” said one campaigner.

    Two days after scientists recorded the hottest day on record and warned that the milestone is the latest clear sign that all fossil fuel production must be urgently phased out, the CEO of multinational oil and gas giant Shell claimed that transitioning to renewable energy sources is what would endanger the world and expressed what campaigners called “cynical” concerns for the well-being of the Global South.

    Wael Sawan, who took over the U.K.-based company last year, told the BBC Thursday that the world’s energy system “continues to desperately need oil and gas,” contrary to evidence put forward by the International Energy Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, and other experts.

    “I think what would be dangerous and irresponsible is actually cutting out the oil and gas production so that the cost of living—as we saw just last year—starts to shoot up again,” said Sawan.

    Cost-of-living increases have raised alarm in communities around the world following the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—but numerous analyses have pointed to corporate greed and price-gouging, not the decreasing supply of oil and gas, as primary drivers of financial hardship for working people.

    Shell reported record-breaking profits of nearly $40 billion last year, doubling its total for 2021.

    “The only ‘danger’ Shell would see in cutting production is to their eye-watering profits,” Alice Harrison of the international human rights group Global Witness told The Guardian Thursday. “Whether blinded by the pound signs or simply willfully ignorant, Shell’s CEO is wrong. Ending our dependence on fossil fuels and transitioning to green energy will serve both the planet and provide energy security for all. Shell [has] once again made their loyalties clear—profit over people and planet.”

    Guterres is among the critics who have warned that companies that continue to invest in fossil fuels will not continue to see enormous profits forever, and as Common Dreams reported last week, research from the University of Waterloo in Canada found that public pensions in the United States have lost tens of billions of dollars due to their refusal to pull out of the oil, gas, and coal sectors.

    “Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness,” Guterres said earlier this year. “Such investments will soon be stranded assets—a blot on the landscape and a blight on investment portfolios.”

    In his comments to the BBC, Sawan suggested his concern is not with his own company’s future, but that of the Global South—where people are suffering disproportionately from the effects of the climate crisis and planetary heating, despite causing a tiny fraction of the fossil fuel pollution that originates in wealthier countries.

    He said the distribution of benefits from the use of renewable energy must be “globally responsible” so the Global North doesn’t hoard energy sources such as solar and wind power.

    “Let’s be clear, companies like Shell are fueling both the climate crisis and the soaring cost of energy,” Jamie Peters of Friends of the EarthtoldThe Guardian. “They are profiting from the misery of ordinary people while destroying the planet, and they’re making a cynical case to continue locking us into the volatile fossil fuel markets that are the root cause of the energy crisis.”

    As environmental journalist Harry Cockburn noted on social media, for all Sawan’s claims of concern for people in the Global South, he made clear that Shell’s profits are his top priority as the interview concluded.

    “Cutting production is only dangerous in the kind of upside-down world where profit rules over everything,” said the grassroots coalition Stop Cambo, which pressured Shell to pull out of the Cambo oil field off the coast of Scotland in 2021. “Even as the planet burns and people are forced to choose between heating and eating.”

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

  • Scotland generates record-breaking renewable energy

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    Shetland’s biggest Wind Turbine Image © Copyright Andy Waddington and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

    https://energydigital.com/articles/scotland-generates-record-breaking-renew able-energy

    … According to official data, Scotland broke previous records by generating 35.3TWh of renewable electricity in 2022, marking a 28.1% increase from 2021 and 9.8% from 2020. This amount of electricity could power all households in Scotland for over three years. The fourth quarter of 2022 saw the largest increase in renewable electricity generation in Scotland’s history, rising by 14%.

    Between September and December 2022, the renewable electricity capacity grew from 13.6GW to 13.8GW. In addition, Scotland’s net electricity exports increased by 17% to 18.7TWh in 2022, with a wholesale market value of approximately £4 billion.

    Wind energy was the primary contributor to Scotland’s renewable electricity generation in 2022, accounting for 27.5TWh. Of this amount, 5.8TWh came from offshore wind, while 21.8TWh was generated from onshore wind.

    …

    https://energydigital.com/articles/scotland-generates-record-breaking-renewable-energy

  • ‘The Writing Is on the Wall for Fossil Fuels’: Activist Investors Sue Shell Board Over Climate Failures

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

    \Original article by JAKE JOHNSON Feb 09, 2023 republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

    “The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening. Yet the board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed.”

    A group of activist investors sued Shell’s board of directors on Wednesday for failing to “deliver the reduction in emissions that is needed to keep global climate goals within reach.”

    ClientEarth, an environmental law charity and institutional investor in Shell, described the case as the first time a company board is facing a shareholder lawsuit for inadequately preparing to transition away from fossil fuels.

    “Shell may be making record profits now due to the turmoil of the global energy market, but the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels long term,” Paul Benson, a senior lawyer at ClientEarth, said in a statement. “The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening. Yet the board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed, leaving the company seriously exposed to the risks that climate change poses to Shell’s future success—despite the board’s legal duty to manage those risks.”

    The lawsuit, which is backed by large institutional investors that collectively hold 12 million shares of Shell, alleges that the oil giant’s 11 directors are violating the Companies Act, a U.K. law that requires corporate boards to “promote the success” of the business.

    By failing to sufficiently manage climate risks and implement “an energy transition strategy that aligns with the Paris Agreement,” Shell is flouting its legal obligations, the lawsuit contends.

    “Shell’s Board on the other hand maintains that its ‘Energy Transition Strategy’—including its plan to be a net-zero emissions business by 2050—is consistent with the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement,” ClientEarth notes. “It also claims that its plan to halve emissions from its global operations by 2030 is ‘industry-leading,’ however this covers less than 10% of its overall emissions.”

    “It is in the best interests of the company, its employees, and its shareholders—as well as the planet—for Shell to reduce its emissions harder and faster than the board is currently planning.”

    ClientEarth and its backers are asking the High Court of Justice in London to force Shell’s board to “adopt a strategy to manage climate risk in line with its duties under the Companies Act” and in compliance with a 2021 Dutch court ruling ordering the oil giant to cut its total carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.

    “Long term, it is in the best interests of the company, its employees, and its shareholders—as well as the planet—for Shell to reduce its emissions harder and faster than the board is currently planning,” Benson said.

    Jacqueline Amy Jackson, the head of responsible investment at London CIV—one of the institutional backers of ClientEarth’s lawsuit—said that “we do not believe the board has adopted a reasonable or effective strategy to manage the risks associated with climate change affecting Shell.”

    “In our view,” Jackson added, “a board of directors of a high-emitting company has a fiduciary duty to manage climate risk, and in so doing, consider the impacts of its decisions on climate change, and to reduce its contribution to it.”

    Shell said in response that ClientEarth’s suit “has no merit.”

    ClientEarth filed its complaint a week after Shell announced that its profits doubled in 2022, surging to a record $40 billion as households across Europe and around the world struggled with high energy costs. The company said it returned $26 billion to shareholders last year through dividends and stock buybacks.

    Earlier this month, the advocacy group Global Witness filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accusing Shell of “lumping together some of its gas-related investments with its spending on renewables to inflate its overall investment in renewable sources of energy,” misleading investors and authorities.

    “Shell’s so-called renewable and energy solutions category is pure fiction,” said Zorka Milin, a senior adviser at Global Witness. “The company is living in fantasy land if it thinks fossil gas has any place in the much-needed energy transition. Shell’s business model has always been, and continues to be, overwhelmingly based on climate-polluting fossil fuels.”

    Shell is also facing lawsuits from nearly 14,000 Nigerians whose communities have been devastated by the company’s pollution and oil spills.

    \Original article by JAKE JOHNSON Feb 09, 2023 republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

  • Fossil fools: Why governments are not addressing the climate crisis :: DRAFT subject to revision Revision 7

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    [3/11/22 I’m suffering from a temporary health condition [4/11/22: Baker’s cysts] which is very painful. I’m not thinking straight and find myself shouting at people on the radio, etc because of the pain. I may have lost my way with this and it’s probably best that I leave it for a while.]

    This is the article the earlier Coming soon relates to. It is getting revised and elaborated. This is my understanding and judgement. I am not claiming that it is wholly correct but it is approaching it.

    Every adult has a responsibility to future generations. Current governments are woefully failing that responsibility through neglecting to address the climate crisis. There are many reasons for this which I am trying to identify in this article.

    Public (private) education

    Privately-funded education in UK is incorrectly called public education so that you have public schools which are actually private fee-paying schools that rich people send their children to. It is generally a high standard of education, far higher than the real pubic free schooling system provided by the government and financed through taxation.

    In addition to academic achievements public school students are taught how to rule, to be in charge. Many UK politicians – particularly Conservative or ‘Tory’ politicians – are privately educated with some attending the elite Eton public school before progressing to study PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) at the highly regarded Oxford University. By contrast I was educated at many different state-run schools, left school having completed O-levels at 16 and later achieved a BSc at a polytechnic and later again a MSc at the same polytechnic which by then had converted to a post-polytechnic university. I am quite capable in different ways through my experiences and despite receiving a less than first-class educational experience.

    Three aspects of the education that public school students receive in addition to the academic education – often called the ‘hidden curriculum’ – are (i) that they should be concerned only with their own welfare, (ii) that they should trust and act on their intuition disregarding and regardless of evidence to the contrary, and (iii) that they will never be held to account for their actions. These three taught aspects have awful consequences for the World since they lead to neglecting to address the climate crisis.

    There is a phrase “A gentleman never lies”. What this means is that public schoolboys are never accused of lying. They do lie of course – look at Tony ‘Bliar’ Blair and Boris Johnson. Lying was Boris Johnson’s first instinct – you would be nearer the truth by believing the exact opposite of anything he said. I was out drinking and fraternising locally and this posh public schoolboy student was taking the piss out of me. He was probably a student of law or something similar. So he’s repeating to me “I’m not taking the piss out of you.” as he was taking the piss out of my beauty mark, being hugely personally insulting. So I’m repeating back “That’s exactly what you’re doing.” It’s impolite to accuse somebody of lying of course but he was a total cnut trying to invoke personal stigma not understanding the accusation of being a liar because he had never experienced that.

    These posh boys are also never contradicted so that they exist in some parallel universe. Blair may well have believed in weapons of mass destruction because he had poor abilities judgement abilities. The richer they are the more detatched from reality they are. People suck up to them. You never discuss prices with these posh boys because money is not an issue for them, they’re rolling in it.

    These are the people in charge, really nasty people who don’t care about anyone else, appear concerned only with the immediate, don’t seem to take anything seriously and enjoy humiliating plebs like me. I can’t say that they’re all like that of course but that’s how they’ve been moulded so it would be difficult for them to not be. So, back to the main issue here: Why governments are not addressing the climate crisis. These are the people in charge who control governments. These are the people with superyachts, the people who fly around the World in private jets who just don’t care about anyone or anything except themselves. It might be fairer to say that it is the elite of this elite that is the problem, the 1% of the 1% who depend on big oil and gas to keep them rich and powerful. What sort of cnut do you have to be to take part in space tourism?

    Elite education may have been appropriate in the era of Empire but is totally inappropriate now. Elite establishments should use their lead to teach compassion, co-operation and respect for all. I appreciate that state school teachers are constrained in how they can behave and what they can teach. School students should not be bullied for being poor, independent or free-thinking as was my experience. State school teachers and lecturers need to respect students’ human rights, help young people develop their potential and encourage participation in the democratic process.

    The very concept of childhood is relatively recent and even today doesn’t exist in much of the World. Children are not educated and through poverty are forced to work in much of the World.

    I started this article by stating that every adult has a responsibility to future generations. Privately educated Rish! Sunak has more of a responsibility than all other UK adults since he is UK prime minister. However, by chosing to neglect the climate crisis and by actually accelerating climate destruction he is even neglecting his responsibility to his own two daughters.

    Climate activists are challenged while climate destroyers are not. Where are the questions Why are you destroying the planet? You’re promoting space tourism that causes … why are you doing that? Do you realise that this superyacht causes … ?

    • Fossil Fuels 
    • The fossil fuel industry has deliberately developed contemporary societies to be hugely dependent on oil and gas. UK is an oil-dependent society rather than an industrial or any other society.
    • Politicians are so close to the fossil fuel industry that it is difficult to distinguish them.
    • There is a lack of imagination, politicians and others cannot imagine anything other than oil-dependency. There are alternative, renewable sources of energy that are cleaner and cheaper and do not cause climate destruction.