Empty promises: G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production

This research discovers that G20 country governments’ support to fossil fuel production marries bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the production of oil, gas and coal, much of which cannot be used if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.

The report Empty promises: G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production documents, for the first time, the scale and structure of fossil fuel production subsidies in the G20 countries. The evidence points to a publicly financed bailout for some of the world’s largest, most carbon-intensive and polluting companies.

How clean is clean coal?

The coal industry argues that more efficient and less polluting ‘advanced coal’ will help reduce carbon emissions and other pollution. What we can’t forget, ahead of next week's World Coal Association meeting and OECD talks on coal policy, is that there are cheaper and cleaner options.

Burning coal generates about 40% of fossil fuel emissions. Current G7 and Chinese plants, alongside a dramatic expansion of coal power planned in the developing world, stand to blow our carbon budget.

Political Climate Shifting Against The Oil And Gas Industry

Oil and gas companies have had a tough time over the past year trying to weather the storm of falling oil prices. But the political and financial winds are moving in the wrong direction for the industry, raising more “above ground” problems at a time that they can ill-afford it.

Drilling oil and gas wells requires a lot of money. For companies that have seen their revenues vanish because of collapsing oil prices, access to credit is obviously critically important. But U.S. financial regulators are growing concerned about a pile of energy debt that is deteriorating in quality. A reportfrom the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve singled out the oil and gas sector when it concluded that credit risk was rising across the United States.

Germany’s Nuclear Cutback Is Darkening European Skies

Germany’s influence in Europe is unquestionable, but it appears that some of its neighbors may be adversely affected by recent German decisions; and Greece is not the neighbor in question here. France has been reporting heavy levels of air pollution which authorities in the country are blaming on diesel cars there. But the real culprit may in fact be the renewed German penchant for coal power.

Up until a few years ago, Germany, along with France, was at the forefront of nuclear power use. But after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, the Germans were quick to begin phasing out nuclear power. In some countries, phasing out nuclear power would be easy, but in 2011, Germany obtained 25% of its power from nuclear sources. This nuclear power generated no carbon dioxide emissions of course, and little in the way of other forms of pollution. But after starting the phase out of nuclear power, Germany still needed to find a source of replacement power.

The Hack That Warmed the World

The client wanted carbon credits: tradable serial numbers that confer the right to pollute the Earth with invisible, odorless gas. Jugga, as the client called himself, planned to steal the credits, quickly resell them, and become rich overnight—but he needed the Black Dragon to hack into a computer system to help him do it. The Dragon, who in online forums advertised his services as a corporate spy, was sure he could hack anything. But when Jugga contacted him in June 2011, the hacker had no idea what carbon credits even were. “I didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to come up with that,” the Dragon says of the concept.

The Climate Wars Are Already Here

West Africa’s Niger River Basin, home to some of the poorest countries in the world, might be the bleeding edge of a new kind of conflict. Along Africa’s third-largest river, climate change and ballooning populations in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria — the three largest countries that rely on the waters of the Niger River — are driving a looming resource shortage, exacerbated by strained infrastructure, that risks pushing them past the breaking point. And research shows economic deprivation and environmental degradation may have already begun to take their toll, contributing to destabilizing much of the region and potentially threatening global security.

US Supreme Court Rejects BP Appeal

Four years later, it is clear BP gravely miscalculated the magnitude of their mistake. On Monday, the United States Supreme Court rejected BP’s settlement appeal regarding 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The ruling – the latest of several against the company – means the oil and gas major will have to continue its payments to affected businesses and individuals. Shares of the company fell nearly three percent following the verdict, putting an exclamation mark on what has been a tough final quarter for the British multinational. BP, whose legal odyssey is far from over, now faces an even tougher 2015 as the company looks to leverage its future to overcome its past.

BP maintains federal courts and the claims administrator have misinterpreted its 2012 settlement, allowing unaffected parties to collect millions in unwarranted damages – an argument the highest court decided not to hear. The settlement, originally valued at $7.8 billion, could soon break the $10 billion mark.

Fed Up With Federal Inaction, States Act Alone on Cap-and-Trade

Unsatisfied with the pace at which the federal government is acting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, several U.S. states and a few Canadian provinces are forging ahead with their own initiatives.

In 2013, California kicked off a cap-and-trade program in an effort to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The first year of the program was a resounding success, with the state’s economy expandingwhile at the same time adding renewable energy.

Beating the Dead Horse That is Coal

Though there is a ‘coup’ underway in Libya and the geopolitical crisis over Ukraine continues to intensify, the drama of the week focuses on the fate of coal and new environmental rules that will have a lasting impact on energy markets.

Since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its new plans for curbing carbon emissions from power plants earlier this week, there has been a flurry of speculation over who the winners and losers will be and the significance of this for energy markets.

China Considers New Powers for Pollution Watchdog

By David Stanway and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - China could grant its undersized environment ministry new powers over resources, possibly allowing it to veto future projects, and more muscle to punish polluters as part of a government shake-up to tackle decades of unchecked growth.

Green Fade-Out: Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals

DPA

 

Europe may be backing away from its ambitious climate protection goals.

The EU's reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commission wants to forgo ambitious climate protection goals and pave the way for fracking -- jeopardizing Germany's touted energy revolution in the process. 

Is a green energy revolution on the global agenda?

A week after the most powerful “super typhoon” ever recorded pummeled the Philippines, killing thousands in a single province, and three weeks after the northern Chinese city of Harbin suffered a devastating “airpocalypse,” suffocating the city with coal-plant pollution, government leaders beware! Although individual events like these cannot be attributed with absolute certainty to increased fossil fuel use and climate change, they are the type of disasters that, scientists tell us, will become a pervasive part of life on a planet being transformed by the massive consumption of carbon-based fuels. If, as is now the case, governments across the planet back an extension of the carbon age and ever increasing reliance on “unconventional” fossil fuels like tar sands and shale gas, we should all expect trouble. In fact, we should expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution.

Just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made global warming emissions

Oil, coal and gas companies are contributing to most carbon emissions, causing climate change and some are also funding denial campaigns. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters\

 

The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.

Germany has won its fight to delay EU law for curbing CO2 emissions from cars

 
 
Germany has won its fight to delay a proposed EU law aimed at curbing CO2 emissions from cars.

The original legislation agreed with MEPs in June said carmakers must reduce their fleets’ average emissions to 95 grammes per kilometre by 2020.

This gamble on carbon and the climate could trigger a new financial crisis

If you want to see market irrationality in action, look no further than current stock market valuations for the world's major oil, gas and coal companies.

Summer 2013: eastern Europe is facing one of the heaviest floodings in the last 50 years (Photograph: Ruben Neugebauer/Corbis

At a time when governments are supposedly preparing for a global climate change deal that will cut carbon emissions, energy multinationals are investing in carbon assets like there's no tomorrow.

Commission should move to structural reform of the ETS

The EU regularly describes the ETS as the centrepiece of its climate policy. This centrepiece is currently a failure. Climate change is already killing hundreds of thousands of people each year, and costing the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet European efforts to strengthen the ETS are moving at a snail’s pace.

Last month the European Parliament rejected Commission proposals to postpone the auction of carbon allowances under the Emissions Trading System (ETS). The Commission had proposed this in an attempt to stop the carbon price falling even further, but Parliament’s rejection of such ‘backloading’ means that the carbon price is now down to about €3 per tonne. This is far too low to encourage firms to invest in low-carbon technologies.

European carbon market in trouble

As the centerpiece of Europe’s pledge to lead the global battle against climate change, the region’s market for carbon emissions effectively turned pollution into a commodity that could be traded like gold or oil. But the once-thriving pollution trade here has turned into a carbon bust.

Under the system, 31 nations slapped emission limits on more than 11,000 companies and issued carbon credits that could be traded by firms to meet their new pollution caps. More efficient ones could sell excess carbon credits, while less efficient ones were compelled to buy more. By August 2008, the price for carbon emission credits had soared above $40 per ton — high enough to become an added incentive for some companies to increase their use of cleaner fuels, upgrade equipment and take other steps to reduce carbon footprints.

UN climate talks nearing weak deal on emissions by rich, money for poor

Bleary-eyed negotiators from nearly 200 countries haggled through the night over new draft agreements on emissions cuts by rich countries and aid for poor as United Nations climate talks spilled into Saturday.

Osama Faisal/Associated Press - Local and international activists march inside a conference center under a giant statue of a spider to demand urgent action to address climate change at the U.N. climate talks in Doha, Qatar, Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. A dispute over money clouded U.N. climate talks Friday, as rich and poor countries sparred over funds meant to help the developing world cover the rising costs of mitigating global warming and 

The two-week conference was set to finish Friday, but as so often in the annual U.N.-led talks, negotiators struggled to reach an agreement, especially on money matters.

After all-night wrangling, the latest drafts Saturday lacked the strong commitments on climate action and financing by rich countries that poor countries had hoped for. But they did include a text on “loss and damage,” a relatively new concept which relates to damages from climate-related disasters.

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest hits record low

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has dropped to its lowest level in 24 years, the government said Tuesday.

Satellite imagery showed that 1,798 square miles (4,656 square kilometers) of the Amazon were deforested between August 2011 and July 2012, Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said a news conference. That’s 27 percent less than the 2,478 square miles (6,418 square kilometers) deforested a year earlier. The margin of error is 10 percentage points.

Emissions, climate aid in focus as new round of UN climate talks opens in Qatar

U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it.

Osama Faisal, File/Associated Press - FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2012 file photo, conference flags are displayed ahead of the Doha Climate Change Conference, in Doha, Qatar. As nearly 200 countries meet in oil-and-gas rich Qatar for annual talks on curbing climate change, one of the main challenges will be raising hundreds of billions of dollars to help poor nations adapt to a warming world that may damage their health, 

The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.