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Last week, I joined my colleagues at COP28 in Dubai , as negotiators and civil society push for a fossilfuel phaseout to meet climate goals. The industry is pushing a narrative that misleadingly calls out emissions , not fossilfuels as the problem. Source: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.
Some years ago, I began to feel the most important thing I could do was learn how to replace fossilfuel with renewable energy. For 30 years I have been an advocate for offshore wind development off New England’s coast and for the creation of institutions to support a transition from fossilfuels to renewable energy.
Fossilfuel power plant owners are facing increased accountability for their air and water pollution, including from a new round of environmental and public health protections that are being rolled out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We’ve heard these lazily disingenuous narratives before.
Over its short lifetime, the program has already transformed many segments of the fuels market. More than two-thirds of our diesel comes from renewable, non-petroleum resources, and many California refineries are shifting from refining fossilfuels to refining waste oils and other renewable feedstocks.
That 2013 headline resulted from the first effort to quantify emissions from the ‘carbon majors’ —fossilfuel companies and cement manufacturers whose businesses have contributed an outsized amount of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. Nearly two-thirds of industrial heat-trapping emissions can be traced to just 90 entities.
From 2010 through 2020, the cost of electricity from wind fell more than 60 percent, according to the Department of Energy. Wind power is now cheaper than fossilfuels—even existing coal plants—in many parts of the country. Wind power is a bargain. An important part of wind power’s success in recent years has been its low cost.
Rooftop solar costs in 2020 were a third of what they had been in 2010. In 2020, the cost of single-axis utility scale solar was only a fifth of what it was in 2010. Cheaper renewable energy attracts private investment and makes limits on fossilfuels more feasible. Wind power costs fell by half from 2008 to 2021.
It also will save US consumers money because they will spend less on fossilfuels. First, decarbonizing the electricity sector mainly with wind and solar to replace coal and fossil gas. Second, replacing fossilfuels with clean electricity in the transportation, building, and industrial sectors. Your thoughts?
New research from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) confirms renewables are continuing to outpace fossilfuels on cost. They found that the share of renewable energy that achieved lower costs than the most competitive fossilfuel option doubled in 2020. C climate pathway.
According to the Energy Information Agency , South Korea’s power sector is heavily reliant on fossilfuels. Two thirds of generation capacity is based on fossilfuels, split evenly between coal and natural gas, with 17% nuclear, and 14% hydro and other renewables. 50% coal, 26% gas, and 25% nuclear.
Many of my colleagues have already described the various ways we’ve gotten into this elevated fuel price mess, why doubling down on fossilfuels at this moment is a horrible idea, and why doing so would not improve our current or future economic, geopolitical or environmental problems. How Did We Get Here?
The dangerous impacts of a warming, fossil-fuel dependent world span from wildfires capable of destroying entire towns to cancer-causing air pollution that afflicts the next generation. The climate crisis is one of humanity’s most complex conflicts yet. Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change, the truth is often obscured.
These laws ban new fossilfuel plants and set aggressive targets for the state’s two major utilities, requiring emission cuts of 80% by 2030, 90% by 2035 and 100% by 2040. The cuts are measured from a 2010-2012 baseline. On Wednesday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a package of four clean energy bills.
What are the physical limitations of this fossilfuel resource that make it vulnerable during, say, summer droughts , or the types of extreme heat waves the world has been experiencing for months now? From 2010 to 2015, Texas experienced its second-worst drought in the state’s history.
Now the same district court has gone further, again in favor of environmental groups but now against Royal Dutch Shell (“Shell”) , the world’s largest non-state-owned fossilfuel company. In fact, Shell has the most ambitious emissions abatement plan of all fossilfuel companies , for whatever that is worth.)
Burning fossilfuels, cutting down forests, raising livestock, making cement, and using synthetic fertilizers are among the actions that have increased the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere to the point that the planet’s basic functions are coming undone. Those discrepancies can be illustrated in numbers.
Consider IPAA’s website Energy in Depth (EID), which attacks UCS and other climate accountability experts while promoting disinformation, such as claims that fossil gas and fracking benefits the environment.
Prior to Glasgow, the NRDC had concluded that India was on track to meet its previous commitment to have 40% non-fossilfuel power generation by 2030. For many years, India’s position was that the developed world was responsible for cutting emissions while economic growth should be the priority for developing countries.
These higher costs are being driven by a major overreliance on natural gas, which has sharply spiked in price and is currently the dominant fuel source in the US for both home heating and electricity generation. These claims just add to the deluge of greenwashing and disinformation from the fossilfuel industry.
For some parts of the spectrum, the IR can be either absorbed by CO 2 or by water vapour or by clouds, but taking those overlaps into account we find that 50% of the greenhouse effect is from water vapour, 25% from clouds, and about 20% from CO 2 and the rest absorbed by ozone, aerosols, and other trace gases ( Schmidt et al, 2010 ).
We know that burning fossilfuels is the main cause of anthropogenic climate change, and that climate change is the source of adverse impacts on communities and even regional and national economies. by Justin Gundlach. These points are largely undisputed. Peter Frumhoff led off, presenting two key points.
Removing carbon from the air or growing crops as a fuel stock — two options that will be necessary unless fossilfuel use declines steeply and swiftly — come with significant tradeoffs for water supply and water quality. Money promised, however, does not always translate into money delivered.
Last week world leaders gathered in New York for the UN Climate Ambition Summit where countries shared concrete action they’ve taken to phase out fossilfuels. There, the conversation was grounded in science, with leaders such as California’s Governor Newsom saying “The climate crisis is a fossilfuel crisis.
For decades the fossilfuel lobby has masterfully weakened, derailed, and outright blocked government climate policy. The fossilfuel lobby meddles with Canadian politics and inserts itself into international climate change politics and diplomacy. The biggest barrier to climate action in Canada is the oil and gas lobby.
We’re witnessing an increase in costly damages thanks to fossil-fueled climate change , which has increased the intensity and frequency of some extreme events , and also thanks to more buildings and people in risky areas. inches during that same period (1981-2010). Families were rescued from rooftops and some “lost everything”.
Climate change is driven by the release of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossilfuels. With 10 per cent of all of the world’s known oil reserve s found in Canada, the country has become a hub for the funding and production of fossilfuels. Pension fund fossilfuel assets can be found everywhere.
Six fossilfuel companies funneled more than $700m in research funding to 27 universities in the US from 2010 to 2020, according to a new study. Read the full story in The Guardian.
That’s a far cry from just six years ago, when EVs were considered a niche technology (and the fossilfuel baron Charles Koch and his minions wanted to keep it that way). Since 2010, the state’s clean vehicle rebate program has issued half a million rebates totaling $1.2 California is also a leader in EV tax incentives.
In order to reduce emissions, we must phase out fossilfuels—oil, coal and gas—and move towards renewable energy and less plastic and petrochemical production since these products, so dangerous as ocean pollutants, are made from oil. By 2050 they could represent 20% of oil demand by 2050.
We are at a crossroads between a more affordable and climate safe future, and one that entrenches our reliance on dirty fossilfuels, increases the rift between the highest and lowest earners and puts profit over people. The cost of electricity generated from solar panels fell by 89 per cent between 2010-2022.
Ethanol consumption grew rapidly between 2000 and 2010 but after 2010 biodiesel took over as the major source of biofuel growth before being eclipsed by renewable diesel after 2016. While ethanol remains the largest US source of biofuel, biodiesel and more recently renewable diesel have accounted for most of the growth since 2010.
In its early years, between 2005 and 2010, the RFS helped launch the massive scaleup of corn ethanol that established 10 percent ethanol as the de facto standard for US gasoline. After 2010, bio-based diesel fuels (biodiesel and renewable diesel) have been the main beneficiary of the RFS.
In the 1960s climate change was not really a significant concern, not even amongst environmentalists – this was despite the fact that the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius in 1896 was the first to claim that emissions from fossilfuels might eventually result in enhanced global warming. This has since changed many times.
But the United Nations has just said that the latest commitments of the 192 parties of the 2015 Paris agreement will equate to a 16% rise in global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2030 compared to 2010. That trend may lead to a warming of about 2.7 °C C by the end of the century. Courtesy: Michelle Bell. “We
The fossilfuel company claims it can prevent Line 5 from spilling into high-risk areas such as the Straits of Mackinac. In 2010, it took Enbridge 17 hours to stop oil from bursting out of one of its pipelines into the Kalamazoo River, resulting in one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. And that’s in a best-case scenario.
They pointed to the fact that since 2010 the cost of solar, wind and battery technology has decreased by up to 85%. The report makes clear that we urgently need the political will to leave fossilfuels in the ground, advance renewable energy and invest in nature-based carbon dioxide removal through forest and ecosystem protection.”.
In 2010, Line 6B ruptured into the Kalamazoo River resulting in over $1 billion in clean up costs. Despite the urgent need to eliminate our dependence on fossilfuels, crude oil production in the United States and Canada has actually grown substantially over the past several years. It took Enbridge 17 hours to shut down Line 6B.
According to the report , average net annual human-caused GHG emissions were at their highest levels in human history between 2010 and 2019, with urban areas responsible for an increasing proportion of the emissions. The rate of emissions growth year on year slowed between 2010-2019 in comparison to the previous decade.
For example, in the United States, there have been nearly 100 leaks or ruptures on existing carbon pipelines since 2010. Each step along the way poses risks, including installing carbon capture at oil refineries and other industrial sites, carbon pipelines (which can leak or rupture) and underground carbon storage sites.
Enbridge continues to spin a narrative that it can be trusted as a fossilfuel megacorporation to act in the best interest of the Great Lakes. Despite this, Enbridge refuses to comply, and the Canadian federal government is working alongside the fossilfuel giant, prioritizing industry interests over Indigenous rights.
of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions from fossilfuel combustion, many airlines are considering carbon-capture-and-storage technologies and electric-powered planes. Since 2020, Neste has picked up used cooking oil from 252 of the fast-food restaurants and refines it into fuel. With the sector contributing 2.8%
“I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to join the energy sector,” says Ann Davies , who is chief operations officer at Lightsource BP , a firm that has been developing solar projects since 2010, and now employs nearly 600 people. All technologies have advantages and disadvantages.
Elmore (2014) Coca-Cola: The Alternative Report by War on Want (2006) The Coke Machine by Michael Blanding (2010). The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink by Michael Blanding (2010) Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola by Mark Thomas (2008).
Almost all plastic is made from fossilfuels. The worst inland spill in US history occurred when more than 1 million gallons of heavy crude from another Enbridge pipeline poured into the Kalamazoo River watershed in 2010. And leaks and large spills certainly happen. Line 5, too, has already dumped some 4.5 Take action here.
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