While these fuels power much of the creation of electricity around the world, as well as most transport and heating, they all need to either be left in the ground or 100% of their emissions. Below is a roundup of a group of articles of importance on these subjects.
Uk’s £22 billion carbon capture pledge follows surge in lobbying by fossil fuel industry, records show
It appears that the promise of this money came after pressure from fossil fuel industries. This suggests that the fossil fuel companies are eager to have action taken on climate change from their tax, rather than from their insane earnings. Equinor, BP and ExxonMobil attended 24 out of 44 external governmental meetings in 2023, which were discussion carbon capture and storage. This is a rough doubling of these meetings from 2022.
In December, 3 Equinor executives had a meeting with the department for energy security and Net zero, pushing the idea that they “appreciate the collaborative approach to policy development”, and unfortunately there are many more similar facts.
The concern, is that fossil fuel companies are trying to set up the system, so that they can continue with business as normal, while the government clears up their mess.
The government appears to have met with other industries with high carbon dioxide emissions, but this transparency and meetings, does not extend to researchers, climate advocacy groups and local councils were less well listened to.
The UK, as well as elsewhere, need to recognize that we need to stop using oil, gas and coal. It is not good enough to merely catch emissions – partly because we never catch all of the emissions and because there is much emissions during the extraction process.
Canadian tar sands pollution is up to 6300% higher than reported
Canadian tar sands have already been recognized, as one of the most polluting forms of fossil fuel in existence, but appears to be worse. Research posted in the Journal Science, found that air pollution from the Athabasca oil sands in Canada exceed industry-reported emissions from the facility by between 1900% and 6300% (between 19 and 63 times as much emissions as previously reported).
Canadian tar sands are clearly one of the most polluting places to get future oil – it is clearly an area where the resource should be left in the ground. Will it be?
Fight over climate change in US politics has another surprise. A congressional investigation has found that Dick Cheny backed ExxonMobil and other oil companies in scuppering this move. Is this a surprise? not really, but it underlines why, even after so much evidence, there are still so many people denying climate change.
Exxon knew about climate change and then tried to silence critics, how are they behaving now?
5 years ago, documents came out that showed Exxon Mobils climate dishonesty, particularly, showing the stark difference between what their own internal research papers said, and what the public facing communications stated. While their internal forcasts for increasing emission, stated that they would increase emission by the equivalent of the emission of the whole country of Greece. Yet, these numbers were not passed on to the backers. When the original report came out, ExxonMobil challenged it, but here are 3 reasons that this is ridiculous.
- Exxonmobil did not challenge any of the original findings.
- Exxonmobil suggested that the research only looked at under 4% of their editorials, however, only 3% of their editorials were on climate change – so the research looked at all the media that was relavent.
- Finally, they claimed, that the study did not mention the separate companies before 1999 (Exxon and Mobil). However, given ExxonMobil took on responsibility for acts by both companies, this is totally irrelavent.
Having failed, they commissioned and paid for a study, and then quoted from it (the study was never peer-reviewed) . Big Oil is following (to the letter) the way that big tobacco behaved to put of the end of the money printing.
What is clear, is that ExxonMobil, is still part of the problem. Investors should flee, and the company should be boycotted. Will it survive into the future? Who knows, but they do not deserve to.
BP dilutes net zero targets in October 2024
This is a real problem! Promises on future cuts appear to be thrown out really easily. Rather than working on renewables, they are doubling down on their old polluting ways. In 2020, they set an aim to be a net zero company by 2050. Within months, he also promised to cut emissions by 40% in a decade – even Greenpeace approved. However by 2023, they watered down the cutting to 23%, then they decided to drop the green investments and instead invest in the middle east and the gulf of Mexico. It appears that at least in part, this was triggered by its rival Shell backing out of its own commitments, months earlier.
This is a dangerous move – the advance of electric cars is moving forwards fast, along with electric trucks. Road transportation accounts for between 40 and 80% of world oil demand. Given that ICE cars are meant to stop being sold in 2035, most of these will no longer be running by 2050, there will be a drop in demand for oil of between 40-80% by then.
This is a short-sighted thing, and wont serve the company well.
Oil shock if suppliers assume demand will fall by 2050 (says Exxon)
According to Exxon, the future is great, but other experts are questioning this. They believe that there will be little to no change in oil demand by 2050, with the demand staying above 100 million barrels a day for the next 25 years.
Exxon believes that if companies fail to supply at todays level for that whole time, then crude oil prices will quadruple as supplies fall. Perversely, BP suggests that consumption will fall by 75% over that time period (to 25 million barrels of water).
Exxon further suggests, that oil will be needed to pull the rest of the human race out of poverty (as though they are a charity, and electric cars, heat pumps and other things are not cheaper to run).
A mix of oil firms and dark money are funding a USA push in Republican states to block Climate law
28 attorney generals (all from republican states) have teamed up along with many other people, and have raked in many millions of dollars to fight all of this law that is needed to tackle climate change.
The question is, why are republicans still in such lockstep over supporting oil firms – their effort was summarized as “Red states AGs are trying to put up a brick wall against important new environmental regulations”.
The main argument is that states are not allowed to legislate on environment, only the countries government. There is a further complaint, against California and other states that go with their rules on emissions from cars. Their argument is that as California is such a big state, if they demand cleaner cars, those cars will then be sold in their states as well – to me a rather flimsy argument, the only reason that you might be against more efficient cars, is if your state gets a lot of money from oil sales (and therefore you want your people to continue to pay more than required).
Currently, republican states appear to be fighting on behalf of fossil fuels, rather than their citizens.
Shell’s joint venture partner confirms an offshore gas discovery in UK North Sea
Shell has found new amounts of gas in the north sea. The total gas quantity is estimated at 131 billion cubic feet of gas (at the lower end of estimates before the drilling took place. This is going to have a significant quantity of carbon dioxide removed from being buried, and as many countries have stated, this should not happen. Unfortunately, often decisions that should be thought about, are not considered. While the government has often said the right thing, the current government has allowed this move to look (and as such, it is harder for them to agree).
Court finds in favour of Shell – no longer required to cut emissions
In 2021, a lower Dutch court ruled that Shell must cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030 (compared with 2019 levels). The Dutch court of appeal, stated things that sounded quite balanced, Unfortunately, outcomes are not that way.
The ruling stated that Shell did have a special responsibility to cut emissions as a major oil company. but did not agree that this meant they could be forced to meet a specific goal. It stated, that companies as well as countries have a responsibility to cut emissions in line with the Paris climate accord. The judgement recognizes that while without Shells extraction, without 3rd party companies, it would not be burnt. In other words, Shell is (here) merely helping someone else to emit.
Upshot: “Companies are not off the hook” (Wetzer). “Although the pathway to injunction-based cases of the Shell type succeeding may be a bit longer and bumpier than some might have hoped, it is definitely there. So as before, companies should act in anticipation of this norm being enforceable or face significant legal risk”.
Gas cookers finally on way out
Electric hob prices are falling, allowing them to compete with gas on price. Not only are electric hobs soon to be cheaper, but them are cleaner and safer as well. It is true that at the current time, electric hobs are more expensive to run, but this to, is not likely to be the case for ever. One thing which is currently hitting society, but not the households budget, is that gas hobs emit all sorts of chemicals, and as such they are bad for peoples health, and electric is far more healthy to be around.
UK government has scrapped the plans to ban the sale of gas boilers by 2035
Frankly another embarrassing step backwards.
Many of the worlds oil ports will be overwhelmed by the climate-driven sea level rise
Nothing fancy to say on this, simply worth noting the irony
Coal use at a new peak
It is unfortunately a fact, that in the year where burning of coal to generate electricity in the UK, elsewhere coal use is growing (partly as a result of the Ukraine invasion. Coal use world-wide is expected to be at 8.77 billion tonnes and could remain there until at least 2027. The blame for this is not evenly spread – China consumes 30% more than the rest of the world combined.
It is hoped that this trend will reverse by the end of the decade, but this may be too late for human life as we know it.
