Category Archives: Fossil fuels

Cambridge University reportedly could drop Barclays in favour of greener bank

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UK lender is a major European funder of oil and gas projects and university has said it does not want to back fossil fuel expansion

Cambridge University could cut ties with Barclays after more than 200 years over the bank’s refusal to stop financing new oil and gas projects, according to the Financial Times.

It reported that Cambridge is looking for an institution with robust climate policies to manage “several hundred million pounds” in cash and money market funds – a mandate expected to cover more than £200m in assets and generate about £10m in fees a year.

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Cop28 president says his firm will keep investing in oil

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Exclusive: Sultan Al Jaber says Adnoc has to meet demand for fossil fuels, and hails ‘unprecedented’ Cop deal

The president of the Cop28 climate summit will continue with his oil company’s record investment in oil and gas production, despite coordinating a global deal to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ national oil and gas company, Adnoc, told the Guardian the company had to satisfy demand for fossil fuels.

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Dozens of US lobbyists represent both climate-focused charities and fossil fuels – report

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Watchdog finds 86 foundations, including New Venture Fund and Pew Charitable Trusts, that share firms with fossil fuel companies

Dozens of US charities, including ones prioritizing climate action, are employing lobbying firms who also work for fossil fuel companies, new data shows.

Pew Charitable Trusts work on environmental issues while sharing a lobbying firm with Chevron. New Venture Fund’s priorities include a “range of conservation, climate, and energy issues”, yet it employed lobbying firms representing oil and gas companies in six states since the beginning of 2022. And Ballmer Giving funds climate and Indigenous rights programs, yet represents a company building fossil fuel infrastructure on tribal land.

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Middle-class fear of green policies fuels rise of far right, Colombia’s Petro warns

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Guerrilla leader turned president says, faced with having to reduce their carbon consumption, upper classes fear ‘the barbarians are coming’

Middle-class fears of losing a high standard of living because of green policies is driving the rise of the far right across the world, the president of Colombia has warned.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian at the Cop28 UN climate summit, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftwing president, said the world had to find carbon-free ways of being prosperous, and that his country’s rich biodiversity would be the basis of its wealth after phasing out fossil fuels.

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Australia news live: Daniel Andrews fires up over ‘Dictator Dan’ moniker; festival-goers warned about heatwave conditions

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Former Victorian premier gives first interview after resignation, saying ‘the haters hate and the rest vote Labor’. Follow the day’s news live

James Ashby to stand for One Nation in Queensland seat

James Ashby, the chief of staff to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, will stand for the party in the seat of Keppel at next year’s Queensland state election, AAP reports.

The Nationals are dead in Queensland’s parliament while the Liberals are lurching further left in their attempts to secure inner-Brisbane seats.

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Mary Robinson reiterates call for rapid phase-out of fossil fuels

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Former Ireland leader issues firm response in row over comments made to her by Cop28 president

Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland, has called for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, in a diplomatic but firm response to the row over comments made to her by the Cop28 president, which were revealed by the Guardian this week.

In a live online event, Sultan Al Jaber had told Robinson there was “no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C”, a view strongly rejected by many scientists. As well as running the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai, Al Jaber is the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company, Adnoc.

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Offshore oil regulator ‘avoiding scrutiny’ over approval for Woodside blasting and drilling

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Environmental lawyers concerned Nopsema has not published its reasons for approving work at Scarborough gas development

Environmental lawyers have raised concern the offshore petroleum regulator is attempting to avoid scrutiny by not publishing its reasons for approving seismic blasting and drilling for a major fossil fuel development in northern Western Australia.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (Nopsema) granted approval for seismic testing and drilling of up to 10 wells for Woodside’s $16.5bn Scarborough gas development last Friday.

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Australia ends finance for fossil fuel expansion overseas – now focus turns to local subsidies

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Albanese government announces at Cop28 it will phase out offshore support for coal, oil and gas within a year

The Australian government has been praised for joining a global partnership committed to stopping billions of dollars in foreign aid and loans being spent on fossil fuel expansion, but the decision has also prompted renewed calls for it to reconsider polluting subsidies at home.

The Albanese government announced at the Cop28 climate summit that it had joined 40 other countries in signing up to the clean energy transition partnership, an agreement first reached in Glasgow two years ago.

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Eight workers at Texas chemical plant hospitalized after toxic gas leak

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Altivia Chemicals said personnel have contained leak of phosgene as city lifts shelter-in-place order that affected nearby plants

Eight people were taken to a hospital for treatment on Monday after a toxic gas leak at Altivia Chemicals’ plant in La Porte, Texas, local officials said.

An update on their condition was not immediately available. The city canceled a shelter-in-place order in the afternoon that had affected several nearby industrial plants, officials said.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Fossil fuel firms should volunteer to help vulnerable countries, says Spanish minister

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Co-leader of EU delegation at Cop28 says climate should be at centre of all financial and economic decisions

If fossil fuel companies are serious about tackling the climate crisis, they could contribute to funds for poor and vulnerable countries stricken by its effects, Spain’s environment minister has said.

Teresa Ribera, a co-leader of the EU delegation at the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai, said: “Private corporates should be stepping into a different development model in vulnerable countries. We went through some language on that that was broadly supported by all [EU] member states, which is: why not just start by an invitation to the oil and gas companies to dedicate part of the profits to invest in sustainable development of the most vulnerable countries. And that’s on a voluntary basis [at first], because why not?”

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Australia urged not to rely on ‘drug dealer’s defence’ for gas exports and help wean Japan off fossil fuels

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Diplomats for Climate group says if government wants to use that defence ‘it needs to be the dealer who takes their clients to rehab and supports them off their habit’

The Albanese government should do more to leverage its relationship with Japan – arguably the world’s most important energy partnership – to help its trading partner move away from gas and towards a rapid and ambitious decarbonisation, former diplomats say.

Diplomats for Climate, an organisation supported by more than 100 former Australian officials, says “the future of gas lies in the ground”, but that a ban on new fossil fuel developments – the focus of a growing community campaign backed by scientific evidence – would not cut global emissions unless international demand was reduced.

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Air pollution is dirty secret in UAE, says rights group

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Human Rights Watch says country’s air pollution is dangerously high but there is little public criticism

The United Arab Emirates’ vast fossil fuel production is contributing to dangerously high air pollution levels, creating health risks for its people and migrant workers in addition to heating the planet, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

HRW analysis of data from 30 government ground monitoring stations in September 2023 found that average levels of PM2.5 (very small toxic particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs and easily enter the bloodstream) were almost three times the daily recommended levels under the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines.

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‘Betrayed’: NT communities angered after learning only industry was consulted on scrapped net zero policy

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Advocates say territory government choice to only consult directly with fossil fuel companies before walking away from emissions laws is ‘bitterly disappointing’

Northern Territory community members say they feel “betrayed” and unheard after revelations the Fyles government quietly consulted the gas industry before walking away from a net zero emissions requirement for new onshore gas projects.

Guardian Australia revealed on Monday that the NT government abandoned a proposal to set net zero rules for direct emissions from new onshore gas projects after companies including Santos and Inpex objected, according to documents released under freedom of information.

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Agreement to phase out fossil fuels would be huge for humanity, says Gore

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Exclusive: former US vice-president and climate activist says phase-out can be only measure of success for Cop28

An agreement by countries to phase out fossil fuels would be “one of the most significant events in the history of humanity”, according to Al Gore, amid wrangling by governments at Cop28.

It would be a “welcome surprise” if world leaders agreed at the climate talks to call for an end to fossil fuels, but such a declaration would have “enormous impact” upon the world, Gore told the Guardian at the gathering in the United Arab Emirates.

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Colombia joins international alliance calling for treaty to end use of fossil fuels

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Colombian president Gustavo Petro wants treaty to lay out plan to end era of coal, oil and gas

Colombia has formally joined an alliance of nations calling for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty to prevent the “omnicide of planet Earth”, the country’s president announced at Cop28.

At the climate summit in Dubai, Gustavo Petro has said his country would join a group of nations calling for a new body to manage a global transition away from the primary driver of global heating, akin to previous treaties to reduce nuclear weapon arsenals and landmines.

Cop28: Can fossil fuel companies transition to clean energy?
On Tuesday 5 December, 8pm-9.15pm GMT, join Damian Carrington, Christiana Figueres, Tessa Khan and Mike Coffin for a livestreamed discussion on whether fossil fuel companies can transition to clean energy. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

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Belgian court orders 55% emissions cut from 1990 levels

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Court of appeal ruling means government has only until 2030 to reach target

A Belgian court has declared the country’s climate targets “clearly insufficient” and ordered the government to cut emissions faster.

In a powerful victory for climate campaigners, the Brussels court of appeal ordered Belgium to cut its planet-heating pollution by at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030. By 2021, Belgium had cut its emissions by just 24%.

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The secret plan to ‘hook’ the developing world on oil – podcast

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As the Cop28 climate summit begins in Dubai today, a secret Saudi Arabian plan to get poorer countries ‘hooked on its harmful products’ has emerged. Damian Carrington reports

Delegates from every country in the world are meeting today at the beginning of the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates. The scale of the challenge ahead of them is immense: phasing out the fossil fuels that power the global economy before a planetary tipping point is reached.

As the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, tells Michael Safi this week, that task has got even tougher. It has emerged that Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries. Critics say the plan is designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”.

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Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s grand plan to ‘hook’ poor countries on oil

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Climate scientists say fossil fuel use needs to fall rapidly – but oil-rich kingdom is working to drive up demand

Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries, an undercover investigation has revealed. Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”.

Little was known about the oil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.

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Success of Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV raises fears for Dutch climate policies

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The party has a hostile stance on attempts to cut carbon emissions but got more votes than any other in general election

The shocking success of Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV party in Dutch elections has left climate activists fearful of a drastic shift to fossil fuels and a rollback of climate policies if it manages to form a government.

Best known abroad for its rhetoric against Muslims, the PVV, which came first in Wednesday’s election but may struggle to find coalition partners, has taken a hard line on policies to stop the planet getting hotter.

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Canada oil and gas firms to drill 8% more wells next year as emissions target slips

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Producers take advantage of new shipping options, including government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline, to boost exports

Oil and gas producers say they will drill 8% more wells in Canada next year as they look to take advantage of new shipping options, including a controversial government-owned pipeline.

Amid forecasts that Canada is not on target to reach its emissions reductions goals, on Friday the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors (CAOEC) predicted nearly 500 more wells next year, to 6,229 projects.

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