Category Archives: Fossil fuels

UK ministers face legal challenge over North Sea oil and gas licences

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Three campaign groups challenge plans to award up to 130 new licences for exploration

The UK government is facing a fresh challenge in the courts over plans to award up to 130 new licences for North Sea oil and gas exploration, in the latest attempt to stop ministers’ proposed expansion of the country’s fossil fuel production.

Three campaign groups have written to the business secretary, Grant Shapps, explaining the grounds on which they consider the latest offshore oil and gas licensing round to be unlawful. They call for the decision to award the new licences to be reversed, arguing that new oil and gas exploration and development is incompatible with the UK’s own rules and international climate obligations.

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Qatar’s gas output increase could cause catastrophic global heating, report says

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If Qatar exploits all its reserves it will add 50bn metric tons of CO2 to atmosphere, more than entire annual emissions of whole world

Qatar’s longest lasting legacy following the World Cup won’t be football or even its human rights record – it will be the climate crisis, according to a new report warning that its huge expansion of gas extraction could push the planet into catastrophic global heating.

Should Qatar exploit all of its oil and gas reserves it will eventually add an enormous 50bn metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere once burned, which is more than the entire annual emissions of the whole world, the new research, shared with the Guardian, has found.

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Could Cumbria coal mine be stopped despite government green light?

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Mine could affect Britain’s climate commitments, which some believe could help get decision struck down

The government has given the green light to a new coalmine in Cumbria, the first in the UK for more than 30 years, but already moves have begun to challenge the decision before construction work can start.

Climate campaigners are examining the decision with a view to a legal challenge, based on the UK’s national and international legally binding climate commitments.

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Environmental leaders urge Democrats to drop deregulation bill

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Environmentalists call foul as pro-fossil-fuel senator Joe Manchin backs addition to defense act to fast-track energy projects

Joe Biden and the Democratic party’s climate credentials will be severely undermined if controversial legislation to fast-track energy projects is latched on to a must-pass defense bill, environmental leaders have warned.

Progressive lawmakers and hundreds of climate, public health and youth groups are urging the Democratic leadership to stop the latest attempt by Joe Manchin, the West Virginia fossil-fuel-friendly senator, to force through legislation that would weaken environmental protections and expedite permits and construction of pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure while restricting public input.

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Just Stop Oil activists occupy beds in Harrods in protest against fuel poverty

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Protesters take to luxury beds and sofas in London store to call for action on ‘sky-rocketing’ energy bills

Just Stop Oil activists tucked themselves into a Harrods display bed as part of a national day of action on fuel poverty in the UK on Saturday.

Footage of the “warm up” demonstrations also showed security guards confronting protesters lying on sofas inside the shop in Knightsbridge, London.

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Queensland faces ‘significant’ wellbeing decline if it doesn’t quickly transition to renewables, report says

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Report by Deloitte warns biggest risk to jobs in the state is a carbon-fuelled economy

A Queensland government-commissioned report by Deloitte says there could be “significant” declines in wellbeing, assets left stranded and a stagnating economy if the state doesn’t quickly transition to renewables.

The report by the global accounting giant, obtained under the state’s right to information regime, also suggests Queensland could have a bright economic future should it rapidly decarbonise in coordination with the rest of the world.

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‘False solutions’: scepticism over Saudi carbon capture plan

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Kingdom’s Cop27 announcement of new storage hub part of pattern of delaying fossil fuel transition, experts say

Saudi Arabia is bolstering years of negotiation tactics designed to stymie vital climate negotiations with a focus on carbon capture technologies that experts say risk delaying a meaningful transition from fossil fuels.

The kingdom, which is the world’s second largest oil producer, accounting for roughly 15% of global output, announced plans at Cop27 in Egypt for what it labelled the “circular carbon economy”, in partnership with the national oil company, Aramco, which recently reported $42.4bn in profit.

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Queensland’s higher coal royalties has had little impact on profits, new data shows

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The state’s treasury does not expect the taxes to make a significant impact on investment decisions

The Queensland government’s imposition of higher royalties for coal producers and China’s ban on imports from Australia are having little impact on super profits, despite a campaign against the taxes by the industry.

The state’s coal industry is a clear winner from the global energy shock as the world looks for new supplies, according to data released by the Queensland Treasury.

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Australia’s ‘carbon capital’ charts a course away from fossil fuels and a boom-bust cycle

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Queensland’s Gladstone council is pinning its hopes on a 10-year energy transition plan, amid concerns for its future in a net zero world

The 6.30am twin-engine service from Brisbane to Gladstone on Monday morning is chock full of blokes in hi-vis and heavy boots.

But this week federal public servants, journalists, renewable energy advocates and the Queensland energy minister joined the usual crowd of Fifo workers descending on the town.

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India’s energy conundrum: committed to renewables but still expanding coal

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Critics says India’s plans to increase coal production to 1bn tonnes a year are environmentally devastating and unnecessary

Three days before India’s environment minister boarded a flight to Egypt for this year’s UN climate summit, Cop27, the country’s finance minister was busy with a new announcement.

“India needs greater investment in coal production,” said Nirmala Sitharaman at the Delhi launch of India’s biggest ever coalmine auction, where 141 new sites for coalmines will be sold off to the highest bidder.

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Peruvian Amazon Indigenous leaders to lobby banks to cut ties with state oil firm

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Leaders from Achuar and Wampis peoples say Petroperú is responsible for spills in their territory

Native leaders from the Peruvian Amazon are to travel to the US this week to lobby banks to cut financial ties with Peru’s state oil company, Petroperú.

Leaders from the Achuar and Wampis peoples say the state company is responsible for oil spills in their territory that violate their human rights by polluting their water sources and irreparably damaging their fishing and hunting grounds.

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Increasing demand for oil and fuel threatens African nations’ economies, analysis finds

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Carbon Tracker thinktank says investors in fossil fuels on the continent would be left with stranded assets

Expanding oil and gas exports would threaten the economic stability of many African countries, new analysis has found, despite soaring fossil fuel prices.

Demand for fossil fuels is likely to fall sharply in the medium term, according to a report published on Monday by the Carbon Tracker thinktank. That makes relying on gas exports to fuel economic growth a short-term, risky strategy, while boosting solar power would prove a better long-term bet, the analysis found.

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Ukraine uses Cop27 to highlight environmental cost of Russia’s war

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Delegation at climate summit tell of destruction of protected areas and carbon toll of invasion and rebuilding

Ukraine has used the Cop27 climate talks to make the case that Russia’s invasion is causing an environmental as well as humanitarian catastrophe, with fossil fuels a key catalyst of the country’s destruction.

Ukraine has dispatched two dozen officials to the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to spell out the links between the war launched by Russia in February, the soaring cost of energy due to Russia’s status as a key gas supplier, and the planet-heating emissions expelled by the offensive.

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Russian oligarchs and companies under sanctions are among lobbyists at Cop27

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The heavy presence of lobbyists from Moscow suggests Russia is using the climate talks to drum up business

Russian oligarchs and executives from multiple companies under international sanctions are among the lobbyists currently attending Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Among those at the pivotal climate talks are the billionaire and former aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, who is under UK sanctions, and the billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, the former head of the Russian fertiliser company the EuroChem group, who has been targeted with individual sanctions by the European Union which he disputed, calling them “absurd and nonsensical”.

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Coal projects in Great Barrier Reef catchments approved without environmental impact statements

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Environmental groups call on Queensland government to end exemptions, with six mining ventures already given green light

At least eight coalmining projects in Great Barrier Reef catchments and floodplains have been exempted from requiring environmental impact statements by the Queensland government, with six already gaining state environmental approval.

A coalition of environmental groups that includes the Australian Conservation Foundation, Birdlife and the Queensland Conservation Council is now lobbying the Palaszczuk government to end such exemptions.

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‘Vital’ energy security bill must be brought back, says Labour

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Shadow climate minister says Britain is losing the race to create green jobs

Labour has accused the government of being “highly irresponsible” in sidelining a crucial piece of energy legislation, arguing that Britain is “losing the race” to create green jobs.

The energy security bill was published in July with the aim of boosting domestic, low-carbon power supplies and bringing down energy costs.

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Cop26 one year on: how much progress has been made?

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As the UN’s Cop27 summit begins in Egypt, there are warnings more must be done to avert climate breakdown

Last year’s UN Cop26 climate talks in Scotland were framed by John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy on the climate crisis, as the “last best hope for the world to get its act together” and avert climate breakdown. As world leaders gather in Egypt for Cop27, evidence suggests they have yet to fully do so.

The Glasgow conference drew collective promises by governments to “phase down” coal use, curb deforestation, advance remedial payments to developing countries hit hardest by floods, heatwaves and droughts, and to come back the following year with more ambitious emissions reduction targets.

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Thousands left without natural gas in Lithgow and Bathurst amid cold snap

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Recent flooding is believed to have caused the pipeline outage in central-west NSW and is hampering repair

It could take weeks to completely fix a pipeline outage that has left more than 20,000 New South Wales residents without natural gas during an unseasonal cold snap, with recent flooding believed to have caused the outage as well as hampering its repair.

Residents in the central-west towns of Bathurst, Lithgow and Wallerawang woke up on Thursday to find their homes without natural gas, a day after snow fell in the region and a temperature of 1C was recorded in Lithgow. The towns of Portland and Oberon are also affected.

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Tanya Plibersek to reassess 18 proposed oil and gas projects to consider their climate change impact

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Queensland environment group had asked federal minister to revisit decisions made going back to 2011

Federal environment officials have agreed to look again at 18 proposed new coal and gas projects after a Queensland environment group submitted requests to have the effects of climate change considered.

None of the 18 projects has been approved under the country’s environment law, but have been through a process where the environment minister determines the nature and scale of their likely impacts.

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West accused of double standards over oil and gas exploration in DRC

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Calls by countries such as UK and US to halt auction for drilling permits in the world’s second-largest rainforest branded ‘galling’

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has criticised the west for pressuring it to halt oil and gas exploration in the Congo basin rainforest, while continuing to search for fossil fuels in their own countries.

The Congo basin, more than half of which is located in DRC, is the last rainforest on Earth that sucks in more carbon than it releases and is second only to the Amazon in size. The DRC announced in July that oil and gas permits in parts of the rainforest would be auctioned off. The blocks up for sale include areas in Virunga national park, as well as critically endangered gorilla habitats and the world’s largest tropical peatlands, which store the equivalent of three years of the world’s fossil fuel emissions.

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