Category Archives: Fossil fuels

Alok Sharma condemns government’s oil and gas bill as vote passes first hurdle

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Former Cop26 president abstains from vote saying bill breaks UK’s promise to phase out fossil fuels

Alok Sharma has said the government’s oil and gas bill going through the Commons will not cut household energy costs or create jobs and instead will break the UK’s promise to phase out fossil fuels.

The government’s offshore petroleum licensing bill passed its second reading on Monday night with 293 votes to 211 against. No Conservative MPs voted against it, and Sharma – the former business secretary who served as president of the Cop26 climate talks – abstained. The legislation would place the North Sea Transition Authority under a duty to run annual applications for new offshore oil and gas licences.

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Albanese government secures further gas supply before meeting on cost-of-living relief

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Deal aimed at keeping energy bills affordable will see 260 petajoules supplied to gas-fired power stations in Australia’s south-east coast until 2033

Australia’s south-east coast will be further guaranteed gas supply in an effort to keep lights on and energy bills affordable before predicted supply shortages at the decade’s end.

It comes as the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has called Labor MPs and senators to Canberra on Wednesday for a snap caucus to discuss further cost-of-living relief measures put forward by Treasury.

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Women added to Cop29 climate summit committee after backlash

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Panel was originally composed of 28 men, a move condemned as ‘regressive’ and ‘shocking’

The president of Azerbaijan has added 12 women to the previously all-male organising committee for the Cop29 global climate summit, which the country will host in December.

The move follows a backlash after the Guardian reported the initial 28-man composition of the committee, which was called “regressive” by the She Changes Climate campaign group. “Climate change affects the whole world, not half of it,” the group said.

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Cop28 deal will fail unless rich countries quit fossil fuels, says climate negotiator

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G77 president Pedro Pedroso warns deal risks failing if polluters like UK, US and Canada don’t rethink plans to expand oil and gas

The credibility of the Cop28 agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels rides on the world’s biggest historical polluters like the US, UK and Canada rethinking current plans to expand oil and gas production, according to the climate negotiator representing 135 developing countries.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Pedro Pedroso, the outgoing president of the G77 plus China bloc of developing countries, warned that the landmark deal made at last year’s climate talks in Dubai risked failing.

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Santos’s $5.8bn Barossa gas pipeline project can go ahead after Tiwi Islanders lose court battle

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Federal court has lifted temporary injunction preventing construction work on part of the pipeline route

Santos’s $5.8bn Barossa offshore gas project has taken another step forward after the federal court dismissed a legal challenge by a group of Tiwi Islanders to the construction of a pipeline.

In a decision on Monday, Justice Natalie Charlesworth dismissed the legal action and lifted a temporary injunction that had prevented Santos from beginning construction work in an area on the pipeline route.

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Chris Skidmore resigns Conservative whip over Sunak’s oil and gas licence plan

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Former minister also resigns as an MP, which will trigger byelection in his Kingswood constituency

A former Conservative minister has announced he is resigning as an MP in protest at the party’s dash for oil and gas, setting up an awkward vote for the prime minister on the issue on Monday and an even more difficult byelection within weeks.

Chris Skidmore, a leading voice within the Tory party on green issues, said on Friday he would resign from parliament as soon as it returns next week over Rishi Sunak’s bill to allow new oil and gas licences to be issued.

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UK students launch Barclays ‘career boycott’ over bank’s climate policies

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Campaign at leading universities such as Oxbridge and UCL warns lender it will miss out on top talent if it finances fossil fuels

Hundreds of students from leading UK universities have launched a “career boycott” of Barclays over its climate policies, warning that the bank will miss out on top talent unless it stops financing fossil fuel companies.

More than 220 students from Barclays’ top recruitment universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, and University College London have sent a letter to the high street lender, saying they will not work for Barclays and raising the alarm over its funding for oil and gas firms including Shell, TotalEnergies, Exxon and BP.

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Sales of electric vehicles surge as fast-charging sites double across Australia in a year

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EVs made up just 2% of new car sales in May 2022, but now 8.3% of new car sales in 2023 are battery powered

The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has welcomed a boom in electric vehicle sales, revealing the number of fast-charging sites has nearly doubled in the last year.

National strategies on electric vehicles are expected to more than double the number of charger stations again within three years, as the federal government seeks to incentivise the use of cleaner cars. New fuel efficiency standards, expected to be outlined in early 2024, are likely to further discourage the sale of higher-emitting vehicles, making electric cars more attractive.

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Queensland to ban new oil and gas drilling in Lake Eyre basin rivers and floodplains

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Steven Miles has delivered on two of the environment movement’s most pressing concerns within a week of being sworn-in as premier

The Queensland government will ban new oil and gas developments in the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin’s rivers and floodplains – belatedly delivering on a nine-year-old election commitment to reinstate protections for the state’s pristine channel country.

The state’s premier, Steven Miles, will on Friday announce new environmental regulations for the basin, which is among the world’s last unaltered river systems.

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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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