Category Archives: Fossil fuels

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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Toxic air killed more than 500,000 people in EU in 2021, data shows

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European Environment Agency says half of deaths could have been avoided by cutting pollution to recommended limits

Dirty air killed more than half a million people in the EU in 2021, estimates show, and about half of the deaths could have been avoided by cutting pollution to the limits recommended by doctors.

The researchers from the European Environment Agency attributed 253,000 early deaths to concentrations of fine particulates known as PM2.5 that breached the World Health Organization’s maximum guideline limits of 5µg/m3. A further 52,000 deaths came from excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide and 22,000 deaths from short-term exposure to excessive levels of ozone.

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US coal power plants killed at least 460,000 people in past 20 years – report

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Pollution caused twice as many premature deaths as previously thought, with updated understanding of dangers of PM2.5

Coal-fired power plants killed at least 460,000 Americans during the past two decades, causing twice as many premature deaths as previously thought, new research has found.

Cars, factories, fire smoke and electricity plants emit tiny toxic air pollutants known as fine particulate matter or PM2.5, which elevate the risk of an array of life-shortening medical conditions including asthma, heart disease, low birth weight and some cancers.

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Companies still investing too much in fossil fuels, global energy watchdog says

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Head of International Energy Agency says the industry faces a ‘moment of truth’ as Cop28 talks approach

Fossil fuel companies are investing twice as much in oil and gas as they should if the world hopes to limit rising global temperatures to avert a climate catastrophe, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The world’s energy watchdog said that the sector still had “minimal” engagement with the global clean energy transition, and continued to contribute just 1% of clean energy investment globally.

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Greens could sink Labor’s gas industry scheme over concerns it supports fossil fuel expansion

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Exclusive: Adam Bandt says party cannot endorse $12 a gigajoule price cap due to exemptions allowing new ‘climate bomb’ gasfields

The Albanese government’s mandatory code for the gas industry could be at risk, with the Greens vowing to disallow the scheme because it supports new gasfields even as the climate crisis worsens.

The Greens will move a disallowance vote in the Senate next Monday, saying the code with its $12 a gigajoule price cap had benefited big gas users. Uncontracted supplies of the fossil fuel had also been diverted to the domestic market.

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In climate-vulnerable New Orleans, residents face battle to lower carbon emissions

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Amid the heat and humidity, energy bills in New Orleans are surging – but the options for low-income residents are severely limited

Darlene Jones spends most of her time holed up in the bedroom to minimize the amount of electricity she uses to cool and light her home in downtown New Orleans.

Air seeps out from the doors and windows of the 1890 one-bedroom shotgun house – and through the bashed-up floorboards and ceiling that Jones cannot afford to repair. She has wrapped foam around the leaky air-conditioning pipes, and taped handwritten signs on the front door above the metal letterbox that read “Please close the slot”.

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Restaurants, pets and holidays: how UK’s well-off have outsize carbon footprints

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Data shows baby boomers have highest emissions and London has lower footprint than rest of UK

• The great carbon divide: charting a climate chasm

Restaurants, pets and foreign holidays are among the reasons why the UK’s most well-off people rack up carbon footprints far greater than those on low incomes, according to data shared with the Guardian.

The biggest carbon divide is in aviation, with the richest 10% in the UK – the 6.7 million people paid more than £59,000 a year – causing more than six times more climate-heating emissions from flights than the poorest 10%. Spending on electrical items, homeware and furniture also contributes to the outsize impact of the wealthy, who splash out four times more on these goods.

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Greens say CSIRO’s independence must be protected after alleged collaboration with BP

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Exclusive: Australian scientific agency rejects ‘ghostwriting’ claims made by US law firm representing victims of Deepwater Horizon oil spill

The Greens have warned that fossil fuel companies must not be allowed to “gag scientists” after lawyers representing victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill claimed to have uncovered evidence of the Australian government’s independent science agency collaborating with BP on academic studies.

The Downs Law Group has said documents it received as part of litigation against BP reveal the oil company’s lawyers reviewed and gave corporate approval to nine scientific studies by CSIRO employees, raising questions about the studies’ impartiality.

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“[W]e do not have a revised final with CSIRO authors”

“Planned for December. Approved?”

“Appear to be other papers that CSIRO is drafting and I will need confirmation they are indeed under way so I can track them and make sure they go through the review process”

“CSIRO paper from last year which made it through the review process and was approved”

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Oil and gas ‘not the problem’ for climate, says UK’s net zero minister

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Campaigners call Graham Stuart’s comments ‘laughable’ and say Conservatives are weaponising climate action

Oil and gas are “not the problem” for the climate, but the carbon emissions arising from them are, the UK’s net zero minister has told MPs.

In words that suggested the UK could place yet more emphasis on technologies to capture and store carbon, Graham Stuart said fossil fuel production was not driving climate change, but demand for fossil fuels was.

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Pacific Islands Forum: Australia under pressure to rein in fossil fuel subsidies

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A fraction of $11bn federal handouts could be used to fully fund the shift to clean energy in eight island countries, report claims

Australia is facing fresh pressure to rein in fossil fuel subsidies, with new figures showing just a fraction of that spending could fully fund the shift to clean energy in eight Pacific island countries.

The climate crisis is one of the biggest issues on the agenda at the Pacific Islands Forum’s top political gathering this week, with Vanuatu demanding “radical” action to end the world’s fossil fuel addiction.

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Pittsburgh in ‘extreme embrace’ with fossil fuel lobbyists, research finds

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Several of the city’s governmental, environmental and cultural institutions share lobbyists with fossil fuel companies

Dozens of governmental, educational, cultural and environmental organizations across the city of Pittsburgh have hired lobbying firms who work with planet-heating fossil fuel companies, new research shows.

The Pennsylvania city has almost entirely divested its pension funds from fossil fuels and plans to dramatically cut its planet-heating pollution. Yet in 2023, it employed lobbyists who also worked for ExxonMobil and seven other fossil fuel companies.

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Emissions of Beetaloo Basin gas projects ‘significantly underestimated’ by government, analysis finds

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Climate Analytics says onshore emissions of proposed fracking understated by up to 84% in ‘a rosy picture that simply doesn’t reflect reality’

Fracking to extract gas from the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin could lead to much larger greenhouse gas emissions than the territory government has claimed, according to new analysis.

The report by Climate Analytics, and commissioned by the Nurrdalinji Aboriginal Corporation, finds the projected emissions associated with proposed gas developments in the Beetaloo basin had been significantly underestimated in government modelling, while the availability of carbon offsets had been overestimated.

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Doctors from around the world unite to call for urgent climate action

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Health bodies demand all governments immediately cease expansion of new fossil fuel infrastructure and production

Global health bodies are demanding international governments urgently phase out fossil fuels and fast-track renewable energy as health professionals increasingly see patients suffering from harm caused by climate change.

The world’s leading GP and health bodies, representing more than three million health professionals worldwide, will deliver an open letter on Saturday calling for urgent action against climate change to protect the health of communities.

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Anti-Woodside protesters gather at ABC studios amid fears Four Corners will reveal sources

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WA police demanded the ABC reveal its sources for an episode featuring a Disrupt Burrup Hub protest against a Woodside gas project

Protesters gathered at ABC studios in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth on Thursday morning amid fears the broadcaster would reveal its confidential sources for a Four Corners program.

An episode of the investigative program that aired earlier this month featured Disrupt Burrup Hub as they planned a protest against Woodside Energy’s enormous gas project on the Pilbara’s Burrup peninsula.

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Fossil fuel firms spent millions on US lawmakers who sponsored anti-protest bills

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About 60% of oil and gas operations protected from protest due to money spent on lobbying, says Greenpeace USA report

Fossil fuel companies have spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign donations to state lawmakers who sponsored anti-protest laws – which now shield about 60% of US gas and oil operations from protest and civil disobedience, according to a new report from Greenpeace USA.

Eighteen states including Montana, Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, West Virginia and the Dakotas have enacted sweeping anti-protest laws which boost penalties for trespass near so-called critical infrastructure, that make it far riskier for communities to oppose pipelines and other fossil fuel projects that threaten their land, water and the global climate.

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