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To adjust the focus of this picture a little closer, just our passenger cars and light trucks contribute to a whopping 58 percent of total transportation emissions, placing our car-centric society in the fossilfuel spotlight. Petroleum has accounted for more than 90 percent of transportation energy in the last 50 years.
Last year, I wrote that fossilfuel companies made billions of dollars in profit during 2022 as people around the world suffered billions of dollars in damage from climate and weather related disasters. Above: Lahaina, Hawai’i after the devastating August 2023 wildfire that killed more than 100 people and destroyed 2,700 homes.
It’s not just the poor air quality, long lines, and excessive fossilfuel company representation ; nations are still too far apart in their positions on a fossilfuel phaseout, the top priority for this COP. Yet global fossilfuel production and use continue to expand. Particulate matter (PM2.5)
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. What’s lacking is political will.
Earlier this year, The Guardian ran a powerful article exposing the ties of Elsevier, one of the world’s largest academic publishing companies, to the fossilfuel industry. The article caught my attention because I’d never considered the ways in which an academic publisher might be perpetuating and enabling a fossilfuel economy.
Production and combustion of fossilfuels imposes enormous costs on society, which the industry doesn’t pay for. One option, a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, gets the most attention but seems politically impossible. A more promising alternative might be a clean-up tax on the fossilfuel industry.
In an important win for climate accountability in the United States, the US Supreme Court decided that lawsuits filed in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawai’i, and Rhode Island against fossilfuel companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Suncor, and others will remain in state courts.
This month, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a ban on advertising by fossilfuel companies, invoking the ban on tobacco ads as a relevant precedent. So what can we learn from the ban on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship that may be relevant to tackling the fossilfuel industry-driven climate crisis?
The destruction caused by climate change is directly linked to human activity, primarily burning fossilfuels. This dangerous delay in action is largely due to the fossilfuel industry continuing to increase carbon emissions and standing in the way of change. . Tuvalu endorsed the fossilfuel non-proliferation treaty.
A new UCS report found that the oil and gas industry has spent massive amounts of money in Colorado to buy political influence and block public health and environmental safeguards.
And fossilfuel power plants may not stick to their retirement schedules for a variety of reasons. The bottom line: There’s still a long way to go, and the clean energy transition must move quicker than it has been—despite the fossilfuel industry’s self-serving claims to the contrary. A bit more on those reasons later.
The key to shifting away from fossilfuels is for consumers to begin replacing their home appliances, heating systems, and cars with electric versions powered by clean electricity. The challenges are daunting, but the politics will change when the economic benefits are widely felt. Read more on E360 ?.
Earlier this month at COP28 countries committed to transitioning off of fossilfuels and massively scaling up renewable energy instead. So you’re excused if, like me, you’re baffled by Minister Freeland’s first move in the wake of COP28: a giant new fossilfuel subsidy, via the new Canada Growth Fund.
Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) research shows that top fossilfuel producers’ emissions are responsible for as much as half of global surface temperature increase. The best solution: Replace fossilfuels with renewable energy. A small number of big corporations are responsible for the climate crisis.
All political leaders should be bolder on climate. Without a strong oil and gas pollution cap, fossilfuel companies will continue to prioritize their profits at the expense of our health, climate and future. Liberal leader hopefuls and political parties should all be paying attention to what people in Canada want.
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.
By Jeremy Williams There’s a giant cognitive dissonance at the heart of global climate politics. At the same time, those governments all want to maximise fossilfuel production. In the graph above, the purple line at the bottom is what needs to happen to fossilfuel production to hold warming at 1.5C.
Now the reports driven by these resolutions are beginning to roll in, and while they certainly provide some insight into the fossilfuel industry’s investment in political influence, a sleight of hand is preventing investors from seeing the companies’ full strategy. ExxonMobil Names Names.
Methane emissions come from two main sources : fossilfuels and agriculture—primarily animal-based agriculture. Despite the obvious dangers of fossilfuel production and the multi-decade climate disinformation campaigns fossilfuel producers have perpetrated, the industry still holds political sway.
Study after study has shown that the fossilfuel industry, for example, knew about the climate-related impacts of their products and yet took intentional measures to disinform people and thwart climate action so that people in the US and around the globe would remain hooked on their products. And there would be some justice.
This methodology is similar to my own work combining climate science, political science, and history to reconstruct how UN climate negotiations have played out and what that implies for climate justice. Such a constraint would clearly place a limit on the amount of fossilfuels ExxonMobil could extract, produce and market.
Texas and a number of other states have passed laws banning what they call “boycotts of fossilfuel companies.” ” More precisely, they ban state investment or contracting with firms that “boycott” fossilfuel companies. Is this as opposed to a political purpose on the part of the managers? “.
Minnesotans are facing concurrent crises of climate change, high energy prices and inflation, and the inequitable public health impacts of fossilfuel air pollution. Renewable energy will help with all of that—but we need a grid that is designed for wind and solar instead of having to rely on expensive coal and gas plants.
Fossilfuels are the root cause of climate change, of long-standing environmental injustices, and are also frequently connected to geopolitical strife and violent conflicts. Other countries are dependent upon these fossilfuels, they don’t make themselves free of them. This is a fossilfuel war.
To begin with, there are the health benefits of the energy transition away from fossilfuels. It will limit the environmental harms caused by producing and transporting millions of tons of fossilfuels. Europeans are seeing right now how dangerous it can be to depend on fossilfuels from abroad.
The majority 6–3 decision sharply curtails the EPA’s authority to set standards based on a broad range of flexible options to cut carbon emissions from the power sector—options such as replacing polluting fossilfuels with cheap and widely available wind and solar power coupled with battery storage.
First, the article very briefly glosses over the politics of carbon pricing – as the article puts it, “the political reality that taxes are a hard sell.” I think these political constraints are a key reason economists focused so long – too long – on carbon pricing. Politics is central in policy.
A big shift to renewables could leave stranded assets — existing fossilfuel plants that the utility will no longer get paid for using. That doesn’t seem to be politically feasible at the national level, at present. Another possibility would be to provide less favorable tax treatment for fossilfuel plants.
A simple statement that masks just how complicated the issues are: mixing politics, economics, livelihoods, fisheries and endangered species in the ocean body that is the Gulf of Maine. GOM communities, not fossilfuel interests, should determine policies that affect GOM people. They should be held accountable for their actions.”
While there is enormous potential for UN climate negotiations to transform climate action, meaningful progress has been delayed in part by the fossilfuel industry’s deceptive tactics. Last year’s COP was notable as the first to explicitly mention “fossilfuels” in the final decision document.
Cheaper renewable energy attracts private investment and makes limits on fossilfuels more feasible. The resulting economic growth also helps create a stronger political base for aggressive expansion of clean energy.
A key member of the European Union (EU) has voiced concerns about the EU’’s dependency on Russian fossilfuels and the consequences thereof. . Virginijus Sinkevicius, the EU’s environment commissioner, said that EU member states’ reliance on Russian fossilfuels in financing Russia’s “war chest”.
A recent report has shed light on how we can wean ourselves off Russian fossilfuels faster than the EU and other countries are aiming for in ways that would also accelerate climate action. . An immediate embargo on Russian fossilfuels.
Last year’s UN climate talks, while criticized for certain shortcomings , brought into sharp focus the need for robust legal frameworks to transition from fossilfuels. It also encourages badly needed reforms inside and outside of government and will help create new political coalitions.
Decarbonization is a long-term challenge, and it requires commitments to drive the investments required for innovation and deployment of non-fossil-fuel energy sources. How can we ensure a long-term commitment to decarbonization in the face of possible retrenchment, and the inevitability of changes in who is in power politically?
This means that, with few exceptions, new buildings will need to exclusively use electric appliances, and will not be allowed to contain any fossil-fuel infrastructure, like natural-gas lines. All-electric as the new normal. A win for climate, health & safety, and equitable process.
Some events last week sent a strong signal that the tide is turning against fossilfuels. To paraphrase Churchill, this may not be beginning of the end for fossilfuels, but at least it is the end of the beginning of the campaign against them. Each of the events standing alone would have been noteworthy.
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.
Climate change wasn’t a central issue in the campaign, but resistance to climate action no longer provided a political advantage. Australia gives AU$11 billion a year to subsidize fossilfuel industries, and another AU$55 billion for supportive infrastructure and activities.
As the climate crisis deepens, so does the urgency to hold fossilfuel companies accountable for decades of deception. As the fossilfuel industry spares no expense to obscure these truths, the work of scientists who engage with climate litigation is increasingly vital.
Fossilfuel companies are well established as founts of disinformation , agents of obstruction, and drivers of climate change. From Pulitzer-prize winning investigations to groundbreaking scholarly research , the evidence of their knowledge and deception is irrefutable.
In the study, we found that political power dynamics shape international negotiations, that the Paris Agreement temperature goal doesn’t fully account for the dangers of sea level rise, and that climate justice requires fully considering diverse views and experiences of climate change.
The poll asked Americans from different social, political and ethnic groups their opinion on specific climate issues. A recent poll found that 60% of Americans believe gas and oil companies are to blame for the climate crisis.
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