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This year has brought new evidence of what major fossilfuel companies knew and when about the role their products play in climate change, as well as what they did in spite of what they knew. They enable us to strengthen our balance sheet and high grade or diversify our portfolio.
Climate Week events highlighted commitments and actions needed from the financial sector and other corporations to support and spur government ambition. Climate Week events highlighted commitments and actions needed from the financial sector and other corporations to support and spur government ambition. As usual, it was a mixed bag.
Yet, driven by vested interests in the fossilfuel industry , misleading narratives aim to distort and hinder meaningful climate commitments. Fossilfuels are the problem It’s pretty simple: the burning of fossilfuels is the main driver of climate change. billion tons of the 40.5
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.
Installations of commercial solarsystems on businesses, schools, and government buildings, for examplewere potentially 13% higher in 2024, per Wood Mackenzie. 2024 also saw many fruits of federal policy, notably the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act , including tax credits for households, businesses, and renewable energy project owners.
And fossilfuel power plants may not stick to their retirement schedules for a variety of reasons. Note: this is adjusted for inflation to 2022 dollars and is based on the amount those plants emitted in 2021, the EIA’s most recent year of finalized data. A bit more on those reasons later. What can be done?
The Year in Water, 2022. Sharpening the Shark’s Teeth By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – December 13, 2022. The strength of the shark’s teeth and the breadth of the bite were on full display in 2022. Though vivid, the shark metaphor is an inadequate frame for some of 2022’s defining water stories. Brett Walton.
New analysis from Environmental Defence reveals that despite federal government promises, funding to the fossilfuel and petrochemical industries remains high Ottawa | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People – New analysis released today by Environmental Defence reveals Canada’s federal government provided at least $18.6
For years, fossilfuel companies have socialized the costs of their pollution while privatizing the benefits. Since local and state governments are on the frontlines of paying for worsening wildfires, they should also be on the leading edge of holding fossilfuel companies accountable. Source: Statista 2023.
Last week, the federal government showed some much-needed climate leadership at COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Joining an ever growing list of countries from around the world, Canada pledged to end public financing for overseas fossil-fuel projects in 2022 and instead prioritize the clean energy transition.
Earlier this month the Government of Canada delivered on a key climate promise and released new rules which end public funding for fossilfuels abroad, starting January 1, 2023. If all signatories follow through on their pledge with integrity, it will directly shift $38 billion a year from fossilfuels to clean energy. .
The shift from fossilfuels in the 100% RES scenario reduces the amount of harmful air pollution from power plants much more than in our “No New Policy”/business-as-usual scenario. Similarly, communities now tied to fossilfuels need support in moving beyond that dependence. And our modeling shows renewables’ power.
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.
In Bolivia, the rising price of gold is fueling a boom in illegal, small-scale mining – activity that is polluting rivers in the South American country. According to Reuters, government officials have been threatened and attacked when visiting illegal mining areas in Bolivia’s Amazon region.
On April 28, 2022, the California Attorney General launched an investigation into the “fossilfuel and petrochemical industries for their role in causing and exacerbating the global plastics pollution crisis.” See our previous coverage on the NY and MA AG’s investigations.
Will the City of Ottawa ban fossilfuel promotion in City facilities? Fossilfuel advertisements indeed contradict the City’s policies on climate. City Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and committed to a full phase-out of fossilfuels by 2050. It’s possible. And who knows?
Across the United States, 80 cities and counties have adopted policies that require or encourage the move off fossilfuels to all-electric homes and buildings.
That would be the straw man erected by defenders of the fossilfuel industry who claim that facing climate change is a doctrinaire liberal policy. This year, many on the far-right are attempting to rebrand Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing as “woke capitalism.”
Egregiously, even as climate-driven disasters leave communities reeling, private insurers are continuing to underwrite insurance for the expansion of massive new fossilfuel projects that are directly responsible for fueling the climate crisis—and show no sign of withdrawing from these markets!
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?
Germany is expected to increase its fossilfuel consumption for electricity generation in 2022, if its weather conditions and electricity demand are similar to 2021, a new analysis from Environmental Progress finds. Emissions from Germany’s power sector could thus rise from 244 million tons in 2021 to 264 million tons in 2022.
The 2022 danger season brought disruption and death in the form of extreme heat, floods and fire weather, not to mention hurricanes. Hurricanes in 2022. For 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted a season with above normal activity on its August 4 updated forecast , calling for 14-20 named storms.
But the scientific and technological advances that made these technologies competitive with fossilfuels are much more recent. One thing you’ll notice is the importance of government-funded research and deployment incentives in helping to launch the solar and wind sectors. Early windmills developed in Persia. generation.
Questioning fossilfuel companies is part of our mission, but each year the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) gets a chance to aim some choice words directly at corporate leaders during their annual shareholders’ meetings. million last year to pump out disinformation about California’s energy policies.
For example, the average duration of blackouts in Puerto Rico between April 2023 and March 2024 was 1,414 minutes, or almost 24 hours (the average in the United States in 2022 was almost 6 hours). Back then, those contracts were canceled by the Puerto Rican government for failing to improve service and meet minimum performance standards.
They accounted for most of the failed generating capacity in a number of recent extreme weather events, including Winter Storm Uri in 2021 and Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, according to Gas Malfunction , a new Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issue brief. percent higher than the number of wealthier residents, according to a 2022 UCS study.
But a March 2022 analysis from the investor consortium Climate Action 100+ determined that no major oil company was on track to meet the Paris goals. Companies are spending millions fighting lawsuits that would hold them accountable for the costs that fossilfuel extraction has imposed on people and the planet.
In December, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service proposed regulations governing implementation of the 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit , passed as part of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act. In particular, emissions loopholes related to biomethane and fugitive methane (i.e.,
That’s a really good thing given the central role we expect and need solar to play in a just transition away from fossilfuels. The industry is projecting the US sector to grow by 32,000 megawatts this year—50 percent more than in 2022, and enough to increase solar’s portion of the US electricity supply to well more than 6 percent.
The reason given for the 2022 withdrawal (lobbying reports lag by a year) is IPAA’s “misalignment” with ExxonMobil’s stated goal of “helping society achieve its ambition for a net-zero future.”
Last week, the outgoing center-right government of President Sebastián Piñera signed over rights to two private companies to extract 160,000 tons of lithium. By Laura Gersony, Circle of Blue — January 17, 2022. A battle is brewing over the future of lithium, an essential component of the world’s transition to renewable energy.
However, great opportunities for more new clean energy supplies to replace fossilfuel energy need supporting grid investments. Transmission policy is vital to supplying grid modernization, and some state governments see their role in planning ahead for the grid we need. Where do we go for that modern infrastructure?
By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – March 1, 2022. 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.
Unfortunately, the very source of the TVA’s grid failure during Winter Storm Elliott in the winter of 2022 is the same source of energy that the TVA is now doubling down on : gas. Note: “Natural gas” is an industry misnomer; UCS considers methane, fossil gas, and gas to be much more appropriate terms for this energy source.)
Statement from Julia Levin, Associate Director, National Climate Dubai, UAE – Today at COP28 Canada joined eight other countries in signing a Joint Ministerial Statement on FossilFuel Subsidies , to address inaction on a 14 year old commitment to eliminate fossilfuel subsidies.
Federal government releases new policy aimed at ending international public financing for fossilfuels, next step is ending domestic financing . The Government of Canada estimates that this policy will redirect $2.5 billion in fossil financing towards accelerating the urgent implementation of climate goals.
California’s LCFS is causing problems for other states and the federal government. The LCFS is designed to hold fuel producers accountable for their supply chain emissions The LCFS and related Clean Fuel Standard policies are performance standards for transportation fuel based on lifecycle analysis.
The Governor approved a notable slate of climate legislation with a package that includes more stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets and measures designed to reduce the state’s reliance on fossilfuels. Climate Change Mitigation. Clean Energy. Conclusion.
October 25, 2022. The federal government awards $18.9 The bill would pause new crypto-mining operations that use fossilfuels, but projects using hydropower would not be affected. government awarded $18.9 October 26, 2022 : Great Lakes Water Authority board meeting — web link. In the News.
Data reported by the World Bank show that prices for two key fertilizers spiked dramatically between April 2021 and April 2022: diammonium phosphate prices went up 75 percent and potash prices rose a staggering 178 percent. The price of urea also surpassed its previous recorded spike in 2008 by approximately 18 percent.
US ratepayers very likely will pay even more for electricity and heating this winter compared to the already-expensive winter of 2021-2022. According to a May 2022 report , utility companies cut power to US households more than 3.6 These claims just add to the deluge of greenwashing and disinformation from the fossilfuel industry.
By Anders Lorenzen Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his government are intensifying their support for the fossilfuel industry, and they have thus distanced themselves further from climate action previously pursued by successive UK governments. Photo credit: 10 Downing Street, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via FLICKR.
And they’re preventing efforts to build a healthy, equitable world beyond fossilfuels. That’s why we’ve included them in our brand-new campaign that names and shames the key players in the fossilfuel industry who are guilty of fueling climate chaos and the tactics they use to greenwash and misinform us all.
For the AMOC (and other climate tipping points ), the only action we can take to minimise the risk is to get out of fossilfuels and stop deforestation as fast as possible. That is in our hands – or more precisely, that of our governments and powerful corporations. They aren’t trying to end fossilfuels.
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