Category Archives: Fossil fuels

Human destruction of nature is ‘senseless and suicidal’, warns UN chief

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UN report offers bedrock for hope for broken planet, says António Guterres

Humanity is waging a “senseless and suicidal” war on nature that is causing human suffering and enormous economic losses while accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said.

Guterres’s starkest warning to date came at the launch of a UN report setting out the triple emergency the world is in: the climate crisis, the devastation of wildlife and nature, and the pollution that causes many millions of early deaths every year.

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Oil firms should disclose carbon output, says BlackRock

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World’s biggest investor wants polluting industries to set targets to cut emissions and reach net zero

BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has said that oil companies and other polluting industries should disclose their carbon emissions and set targets to cut them, in the latest sign of the rapid reassessment of climate risks by asset managers.

All companies in which BlackRock invests will be expected to disclose direct emissions from operations and from energy they buy, known respectively as scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, the investment firm said in a letter outlining its plans.

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Mexico was once a climate leader – now it’s betting big on coal

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As the climate crisis worsens, Andrés Manuel López Obrador plans to buy nearly 2m tons of thermal coal from small producers

The men on the midnight shift smoked cigarettes and cracked jokes in the glow of their helmet lights as they prepared to go underground. They were loading safety equipment and coils of pipe onto wheelbarrows, in readiness for a second shift due to start working later that week.

“We’re reactivating the industry,” said Arturo Rivera Wong, who had just taken on 40 more workers at the mine he owns in the scrublands of the border state of Coahuila.

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Nigerians can bring claims against Shell in UK, supreme court rules

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Ogale and Bille villagers say Shell oil operations have caused severe pollution including to their drinking water

Two Nigerian communities can bring their legal claims for a cleanup and for compensation against the oil company Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary in an English court, supreme court judges have said.

In what lawyers said was a “watershed moment” for the accountability of multinational companies, on Friday the court overturned a decision by the court of appeal, and ruled that the cases against Shell could proceed.

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‘This land feeds our souls’: the battle to save the Rockies from big coal

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Growing opposition to the lifting of mining protections in Alberta has forced the Canadian province to backtrack

To the east of the Bluebird Valley ranch, the grasslands of the Canadian prairies extend beyond the horizon. To the west, the fields rise, and then sharply erupt into the Rocky Mountains.

Cattle graze the 3,600 hectares (9,000 acres) of the Bluebird, an hour south-west of Calgary, and on hot summer days rancher Jolayne Gardner’s children jump into the chilly waters of a creek that threads the rolling hills.

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‘Invisible killer’: fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, research finds

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Pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources accounted for one in five of all deaths that year, more detailed analysis reveals

Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil was responsible for 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, a staggering one in five of all people who died that year, new research has found.

Countries with the most prodigious consumption of fossil fuels to power factories, homes and vehicles are suffering the highest death tolls, with the study finding more than one in 10 deaths in both the US and Europe were caused by the resulting pollution, along with nearly a third of deaths in eastern Asia, which includes China. Death rates in South America and Africa were significantly lower.

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World needs to kick its coal habit to start green recovery, says IEA head

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Energy watchdog’s Fatih Birol says shift away from coal in key regions needs to be made a global priority

Dependency on coal in key parts of the world is preventing a global green recovery from taking off, and the shift away from coal needs to be made a global priority, the head of the world’s energy watchdog has said

Coal still forms a key part of China’s energy system, and plans are in train for further coal-fired power plants in the country. India is also heavily dependent on coal, and despite increasing its renewable energy generation has shown little sign of reducing its use of the fossil fuel.

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UN global climate poll: ‘The people’s voice is clear – they want action’

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Biggest ever survey finds two-thirds of people think climate change is a global emergency

The biggest ever opinion poll on climate change has found two-thirds of people think it is a “global emergency”.

The survey shows people across the world support climate action and gives politicians a clear mandate to take the major action needed, according to the UN organisation that carried out the poll.

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Biden raises hopes of addressing climate crisis as Cop26 nears

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President has vowed to rejoin Paris agreement, cut fossil fuel reliance, and invest in low-carbon growth

Joe Biden’s pledges of strong action on the climate crisis have buoyed international hopes that 2021 can be a breakthrough year, resetting the world on a greener path to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate experts cheered the inauguration of the new US president, who has vowed to rejoin the Paris agreement, rethink US reliance on fossil fuels, and devote hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus spending to low-carbon economic growth.

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Carbon capture is vital to meeting climate goals, scientists tell green critics

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Supporters insist that storage technology is not a costly mistake but the best way for UK to cut emissions from heavy industry

Engineers and geologists have strongly criticised green groups who last week claimed that carbon capture and storage schemes – for reducing fossil fuel emissions – are costly mistakes.

The scientists insisted that such schemes are vital weapons in the battle against global heating and warn that failure to set up ways to trap carbon dioxide and store it underground would make it almost impossible to hold net emissions to below zero by 2050.

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‘Carbon-neutrality is a fairy tale’: how the race for renewables is burning Europe’s forests

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Wood pellets are sold as a clean alternative to coal. But is the subsidised bioenergy boom accelerating the climate crisis?

Kalev Järvik stands on a bald patch of land in the heart of Estonia’s Haanja nature reserve and remembers when he could walk straight from one side of the reserve to the other under a canopy of trees.

Järvik has lived in the Haanja uplands in the southern county of Võru for more than 10 years. His closeness to the forest has shaped his life as a carpenter and the fortunes of the surrounding villages, with their handicraft traditions – a substitute for farming on the poor arable land. Upcountry, travel literature promotes the region to city dwellers, promising its ancient woodlands as a place to rest and reinvigorate the mind.

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Climate crisis: 2020 was joint hottest year ever recorded

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Global heating continued unabated despite Covid lockdowns, with record Arctic wildfires and Atlantic tropical storms

The climate crisis continued unabated in 2020, with the the joint highest global temperatures on record, alarming heat and record wildfires in the Arctic, and a record 29 tropical storms in the Atlantic.

Despite a 7% fall in fossil fuel burning due to coronavirus lockdowns, heat-trapping carbon dioxide continued to build up in the atmosphere, also setting a new record. The average surface temperature across the planet in 2020 was 1.25C higher than in the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900, dangerously close to the 1.5C target set by the world’s nations to avoid the worst impacts.

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More than 50 Australian coal ships remain stranded off China’s coast despite power blackouts

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Some 53 vessels have been waiting offshore for more than four weeks while coal ships from other countries have delivered their loads

More than 50 Australian coal ships are still stranded off China’s coast, held up by a Chinese government import ban, despite the country facing coal shortages and one of its worst power blackouts in years.

China has rejected suggestions that its October ban on Australian coal has contributed to the coal shortage but the ban has been linked to higher domestic prices. Analysts have said that under the current circumstances any incoming coal would help.

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Rio Tinto addresses ‘hurt and devastation’ of Juukan Gorge blast as remedial works begin

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Traditional owners acknowledge mining company’s efforts in rebuilding relationship but say more needs to be done

High-level talks have been held between Rio Tinto and the traditional owners of the Juukan Gorge rock shelter in an attempt to repair the fractured relationship.

Rio blew up the 46,000-year-old caves in Western Australia’s Pilbara region in May to extract $188m worth of high-grade iron ore, devastating the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people.

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Human progress at stake in post-Covid choices, says UN report

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Warning of future dogged by crises if recovery entrenches environmental problems and inequalities

Unless leaders make the right choices on recovering from the pandemic to avoid entrenching environmental problems and social inequalities, the world faces a future of lurching from crisis to crisis, reversing gains made in recent decades in health, education, social freedom and combating poverty, the UN has warned.

The unprecedented impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, combined with the environmental crises the world is facing, threaten to wind back human progress and development, leaving societies around the world vulnerable and more unequal, according to a new report from the UN development programme (UNDP).

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World is in danger of missing Paris climate target, summit is warned

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Minister tells more than 80 world leaders that not enough is being done

The world is still not on track to fulfil the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the UK’s business secretary Alok Sharma warned, after a summit of more than 70 world leaders on the climate crisis ended with few new commitments on greenhouse gas emissions.

Sharma said: “[People] will ask ‘Have we done enough to put the world on track to limit warming to 1.5C and protect people and nature from the effects of climate change?’ We must be honest with ourselves – the answer to that is currently no.”

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UK urged to follow Denmark in ending North Sea oil and gas exploration

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Britain’s credibility as climate champion rests on bold and urgent action, say campaigners

Britain must end all oil and gas extraction in the North Sea as a matter of urgency if it is to maintain its position as a credible climate champion. That was the stark warning issued by green campaigners yesterday in the wake of last week’s decision by Denmark to halt its exploration for new North Sea reserves as part of its commitment to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

The Danish decision is an embarrassment for Boris Johnson who announced last week that Britain would take a lead in the battle against global heating by cutting national carbon emissions by 68% by 2030, a rate faster than any other major economy.

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Denmark to end new oil and gas exploration in North Sea

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Decision as part of plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050 will put pressure on UK

Denmark has brought an immediate end to new oil and gas exploration in the Danish North Sea as part of a plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050.

On Thursday night the Danish government voted in favour of the plans to cancel the country’s next North Sea oil and gas licensing round, 80 years after it first began exploring its hydrocarbon reserves.

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Hundreds rally in Australian capital cities against the $3.6bn Narrabri gas project

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Activists have joined Aboriginal traditional owners in voicing opposition to the controversial development that received federal approval last month

Hundreds of people in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have rallied in support of Aboriginal traditional owners to voice their strong opposition to Santos’ $3.6bn gas project in western New South Wales, which they say will devastate Gamilaraay Gomeroi cultural ties to sacred and significant heritage sites.

Last month, federal environment minister Sussan Ley approved the controversial development that could see up to 850 gas wells being drilled in grazing land and the Pilliga forest, which holds great significance for Gamilaraay Gomeroi people.

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Humanity is waging war on nature, says UN secretary general

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António Guterres lists human-inflicted wounds on natural world in stark message

Humanity is facing a new war, unprecedented in history, the secretary general of the UN has warned, which is in danger of destroying our future before we have fully understood the risk.

The stark message from António Guterres follows a year of global upheaval, with the coronavirus pandemic causing governments to shut down whole countries for months at a time, while wildfires, hurricanes and powerful storms have scarred the globe.

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