Latest news with #fossilfuelindustry
Mail & Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- Mail & Guardian
G20 leaders can't tackle the climate crisis without addressing information integrity
Well-financed and coordinated disinformation campaigns by, for example, the fossil fuel industry, spread doubt about the existence of climate change. Photo: File Last year was These doubts do not spread organically based on citizens' concerns, but are pushed by well-financed and coordinated disinformation campaigns. Global research on climate change disinformation confirms that this is a lucrative business. Challenges to information integrity are affecting climate change policies, as argued in the Forum on Information & Democracy's policy brief, ' These issues are three-fold: coordinated, financed and targeted climate disinformation, orchestrated by vested interests, for example, the fossil fuel industry, that directly benefits from delaying climate action, spreads doubt about the existence of climate change or the effectiveness of certain measures. The campaigns exploit a polarised issue and target policy makers with the objective of hindering action. The attention-focused business model of online platforms facilitates their work and brings profits to platforms. Second, attacks against journalists and the crisis of news media are further hampering access to reliable environmental information and investigative reporting on climate scandals. In the past 15 years, 44 environmental journalists around the world were killed and many more were victims of attacks and intimidation, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (Unesco's) Natural resource extraction occurs to a great extent in countries with little press freedom, making investigations even more difficult. A worldwide economic crisis of the media exacerbates these problems. According to Finally, the media and science suffer from a lack of trust. Only 40% state that they trust the news media, according to the The climate crisis cannot be solved unless we solve the information integrity crisis. As long as the global information space is polluted with false information and doubts, and provides only challenging avenues for reliable climate reporting, it will be difficult to take the needed actions: both citizens and policy-makers will be impacted. The G20 has started recognising the importance of the issue, notably during Brazil's G20 presidency in 2024. The Global Initiative on Information Integrity on Climate Change launched by the government of Brazil, the UN and Unesco aims to contribute to research, communication campaigns and coordinated actions. The South African presidency should follow in these footsteps and encourage all related negotiation groups to recognise the issue and commit to taking action. Their priorities — solidarity, equality, sustainability — cannot be achieved without addressing the global information space and its harmful effect on public debate. In particular, the Sherpa Tracks Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group and Just Energy Transitions Workstream are well-positioned to discuss the issues and make information integrity an integral part of policy debates on climate and the environment. G20 actions must investigate and develop solutions to assess the risk of climate and environmental disinformation on policy-making and the policy debate. Particularly in Global South countries, research is insufficient. The G20 should also look into solutions to co-regulate and regulate the digital space, ensuring that platforms' business models do not continue to exacerbate the crisis but contribute to a healthy public debate based on access to reliable information. Moreover, the G20 must address the attacks against environmental journalists and the sustainability crisis of the news media, providing solutions to protect journalists and journalism in the long run. Finally, debates need to consider how to strengthen access to and trust in reliable information on environmental and climate issues. We therefore recommend that the G20 Heads of States' Declaration includes the following statement in their final declaration: 'We recognise the importance of access to reliable, independent and pluralistic information sources on climate change and environmental issues and will bolster our efforts to ensure the safety of environmental journalists, access to scientific and fact-based information online and to address the root causes of climate disinformation and climate change denialism.' The G20 Summit in South Africa could be an important moment to further the protection of information integrity on climate issues. But efforts need to go beyond the G20. Information integrity needs to become an integral part of all climate negotiations, starting with the forthcoming COP30. Only by addressing the information integrity crisis can we establish a global information ecosystem that contributes to a fact-based and healthy debate on climate policy. Katharina Zuegel is the policy director at the , and lead author of the . The is an independent parallel media initiative to ensure issues relating to media integrity and healthy ecosystems are reflected in the policy agenda of the G20.
E&E News
5 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
Exxon asks Supreme Court — again — to take up climate-damages case
Exxon Mobil is launching the latest effort to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to take up lawsuits by local governments that are suing the fossil fuel industry for the costs of dealing with climate change. The oil and gas giant along with Suncor Energy filed a petition with the high court Friday, asking it to review a Colorado Supreme Court decision that allowed a climate lawsuit brought against the companies by a local city and county to proceed to state court. The petition argues that climate change is a federal issue and that by reviewing the Colorado decision, the U.S. Supreme Court could determine whether dozens of similar lawsuits filed in state courts should be heard in federal court, where the industry believes it has a legal advantage. It urges the U.S. Supreme Court 'to do so before the energy industry is threatened with potentially enormous judgments.' Advertisement The city and county of Boulder, located outside Denver in the Rocky Mountain foothills, sued Exxon and Suncor in 2018. The lawsuit — like several dozen across the U.S. — accuses the companies of deceiving the public about the dangers of burning fossil fuels and seeks compensation for the costs of rising temperatures and intensifying storms.
France 24
08-08-2025
- Business
- France 24
Oil industry presence surges at UN plastic talks: NGOs
More than 180 countries are meeting at the United Nations in Geneva in a bid to thrash out a landmark agreement aimed at tackling the scourge of plastic pollution -- looking at the full life-cycle of plastic, from production to pollution. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said it had counted 234 publicly disclosed fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists registered to attend the 10-day negotiations, which run until August 14. Industry lobbyists "should not be able to attend these negotiations," CIEL's Rachel Radvany told AFP. They have "direct conflicts of interest with the goal of the treaty." "Their interest is in maintaining plastic production -- and the industry is set to triple by 2060," she said. Dubbed INC5.2, the talks resume the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop a legally binding international treaty on plastic pollution, continuing negotiations that stalled last year in South Korea. CIEL, a Washington- and Geneva-based non-governmental organisation which provides legal support to developing countries, scrutinises the lists of accredited participants provided by the UN. It counted 104 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists at the INC2 session in Paris in 2022; 143 at INC3 in Nairobi in 2023, and 196 at INC4 in Ottawa in April 2024. There were 220 at the supposedly final INC5.1 in Busan in South Korea in November 2024, which failed to seal a deal. 'Here to listen' The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) confirmed they had 136 delegates at the talks representing the plastic, petrochemical and chemical manufacturing industries. "While we are significantly outnumbered by the more than 1,500 NGO participants, we recognise and value the UN's commitment to broad stakeholder participation as vital to achieving our shared goal of ending plastic pollution," ICCA spokesman Matthew Kastner told AFP. "Our delegates are here to listen to governments so we can understand the unique challenges they face and bring solutions." Radvany recalled that for the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, adopted in 2003, tobacco industry representatives were not allowed in during the negotiations. Green groups and have also long protested the heavy presence of oil, gas and coal lobbyists at annual UN climate talks. The burning of of fossil fuels is by far the main driver of global warming. Hitting the roof Beyond the 234 industry lobbyists CIEL has pinpointed in Geneva, INC5.2 has 3,700 registered participants and the NGO believes there are likely many more lobbyists operating more covertly within country delegations. Some countries have delegates with titles like "third chemical engineer", which are not included in CIEL's count. Their study also does not include representatives from plastic-consuming sectors such as the food and cosmetics industries, which are also heavily represented at the negotiations. Another NGO, the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), denounced the limited seating for observers in the rooms where the technical details of the treaty are thrashed out, saying the chairs were "flooded by industry lobbyists" -- effectively preventing civil society from participating. Greenpeace staged a protest on Thursday at the UN's main entrance gate, scaling up to the roof to unveil banners reading "Big oil polluting inside" and "Plastics treaty not for sale". "Each round of negotiations brings more oil and gas lobbyists into the room. Fossil fuel and petrochemical giants are polluting the negotiations from the inside, and we're calling on the UN to kick them out," said Greenpeace delegation chief Graham Forbes.
Forbes
30-07-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
The World Court Rules On Fossil Fuels
TOPSHOT - Vanuatu's Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu (C) delivers a speech as he attends a ... More demonstration ahead of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) session tasked with issuing the first Advisory Opinion (AO) on States' legal obligations to address climate change, in The Hague on July 23, 2025. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP) (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images) The International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague thrust itself into the energy/climate debate last week. Via a unanimous advisory opinion issued in connection with a complaint filed by the nation of Vanuatu, the ICJ ruled that government actions driving climate change are illegal and that states are legally obligated both to cut their emissions and to compensate nations that are at risk of the effects of climate change. Vanuatu, a tiny island nation in the Pacific, has warned that its entire land area may be swallowed up by predicted rising sea levels. Agreeing with Vanuatu's position, ICJ President Yuji Isawawa's written decision declared that climate change is an "urgent and existential threat of planetary proportions.' The sweeping ICJ ruling contains broad implications for the future of the fossil fuel industry and the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that it produces. Most significantly, "the Court reaffirmed that a state's failure to take appropriate measures to protect the climate system from GHGs—including via fossil fuel production, consumption, licensing, or subsidies—may amount to an internationally wrongful act (para. 427). Importantly, the wrongful act lies not in the emissions themselves, but in breaching the obligation to prevent significant climate harm." (Source). While countries like the United States, which are not members of the ICJ, likely will ignore what is only an advisory opinion even for ICJ members, one can still expect climate activists to attempt to use this opinion as dramatically as possible. Indeed, it is not out of the question to anticipate that activists will seek international arrest warrants for directors of fossil fuel companies, citing the ICJ opinion as their foundation despite its advisory nature. Regardless of the above, one likely result of this ruling will be to spread chaos in world energy supply and availability. Will Dutch energy companies like Shell and British energy companies like BP henceforth be allowed to continue operating at all? If so, under what future restrictions? As renewables like solar, wind, and geothermal constitute only a tiny part of world energy supply, does this opinion relegate poorer countries to perpetual poverty as they will now face almost guaranteed energy insecurity when heretofore conventional (i.e., fossil fuel) energy sources go away? Internally, certain nations already find themselves battered in two directions. Nowhere will that be truer than in Canada, where the western provinces are threatening "separation" over energy issues, yet new Prime Minister Marc Carney has demurred in allowing increased fossil fuel development to continue to occur. (Source). This ruling potentially now places Mr. Carney in an even deeper legal hole internationally, as he can either possibly tear his nation apart or face claims that he is purposely violating international law. (Source). While the ICJ ruling otherwise sounds commendable to those who claim their only goal is to save the planet, it nevertheless highlights the uneasy relationship between law and science that permeates the issue of climate change generally, and energy policy specifically. By seeking to discourage or eliminate fossil fuels altogether, the World Court is, in fact, forcing future international economic development to rely upon intermittent renewables at a time when the science is just not there, yet, for these sources alone, to propel the future world economy. The result could be both economic and environmental disaster in much of the developed world, as locals, stripped of their most reliable power source, may have no choice but to resort to things like deforestation and other environmentally destructive methods to provide the energy that they will need to survive. For the international environmental community, last week's ICJ ruling might turn out to be the ultimate example of "be careful what you wish for, you just may get it."
The Guardian
30-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The renewable energy revolution is a feat of technology
I know progressives are supposed to be technophobes, but there is one technology we probably love more than anyone else (except the engineers who created it): renewable energy. It is nothing less than astonishing and unbelievable that we have achieved so much progress in so little time. At the turn of the century, sun and wind in the form of solar panels and wind turbines were expensive, primitive, utterly inadequate solutions to power our machines at scale, which is why early climate activism focused a lot on minimizing consumption on the assumption we had no real alternative to burning fossil fuels, but maybe we could burn less. This era did all too well in convincing people that if we did what the climate needs of us, we would be entering an era of austerity and renunciation, and it helped power the fossil fuel industry's weaponization of climate footprints to make people think personal virtue in whittling down our consumption was the key thing. There's nothing wrong with being modest in your consumption, but the key thing to saving the planet is whittling down the fossil fuel industry and use of fossil fuels to almost nothing by making the energy transition to renewables and an electrified world. And that's a transformation that has to be collective and not just individual. Other stuff is great – changing our diets, especially to reduce beef consumption and food waste, protecting natural systems that sequester carbon, better urban design and better public transit, getting rid of fast fashion, excessive use of plastic, and other wasteful climate-harming forms of consumption – all matter. But the majority of climate change comes from burning fossil fuels, and we know exactly how to transition away from that and the transition is underway – not nearly fast enough, not nearly supported enough by most governments around the world, actively undermined by the Trump administration and many fossil fuel corporations and states. But still, it is underway. And, arguably, unstoppable. Because it's just a better way to do everything. One thing that's been striking in recent years, and maybe visible in recent years because there is now an alternative, is the admission that fossil fuel is a wasteful and poisonous way to produce energy. That's the case whether it's to move a vehicle or cook a dinner. Oil, coal, and gas are distributed unevenly around the world and just moving the fuel to the sites where it will be used is hugely energy inefficient. About 40% of global shipping is just moving fossil fuel around, and more fuel is moved on trains and trucks. But also, fossil fuel is extracted, shipped, and refined for one purpose: to be burned, and in the future coming fast, burning is going to look like a primitive way to operate machines. As the Rocky Mountain Institute explains it: 'Today, most energy is wasted along the way. Out of the 606 EJ [exajoules] of primary energy that entered the global energy system in 2019, some 33% (196 EJ) was lost on the supply side due to energy production and transportation losses before it ever reached a consumer. Another 30% (183 EJ) was lost on the demand side turning final energy into useful energy. That means that of the 606 EJ we put into our energy system per annum, only 227 EJ ended up providing useful energy, like heating a home or moving a truck. That is only 37% efficient overall.' That's the old system, and it's dirty, toxic to human health and the environment – and our politics – as well as the main driver of climate chaos. And wasteful. The new system, on the other hand, is far cleaner, and the fact that sun and wind are so widely available means that the corrosive politics of producer nations and their manipulations of dependent consumer nations could become a thing of the past. I know someone is about to pipe up with an objection about battery materials and there are two answers to that. One is that the race is on, with promising results, to produce batteries with more commonly available and widely distributed materials. The other is that batteries are not like fossil fuel, which you incessantly burn up and have to replace; they are largely recyclable, and once the necessary material is gathered, it can be reused and extraction can wind down. But also the scale of materials needed for renewables is dwarfed by the materials to keep the fires burning in the fossil fuel economy (and the people who complain about extraction sometimes seem to forget about the monumental scale of fossil fuel extraction and all the forms of damage it generates, from Alberta to Nigeria to the Amazon). And renewables are now adequate to meet almost all our needs, as experts like Australia's Saul Griffiths and California's Mark Z Jacobson have mapped out. Simply because it's cheaper, better and ultimately more reliable, the transition is inevitable – but if we do it fast, we stabilize the climate and limit the destruction, and if we don't, we don't. Almost no one has summed up how huge the shifts are since the year 2000, but the Rocky Mountain Institute has done that for the last decade, during which, they tell us: 'clean-tech costs have fallen by up to 80%, while investment is up nearly tenfold and solar generation has risen twelvefold. Electricity has become the largest source of useful energy, and the deep force of efficiency has reduced energy demand by a fifth.' Estimates for the future price of solar have almost always been overestimates; estimates for the implementation of solar have been underestimates. Another hangover from early in the millennium is the idea that renewables are expensive. They were. They're not anymore. There are costs involved in building new systems, of course, but solar power is now the cheapest way to produce electricity in most of the world, and there's no sign that the plummet in costs is stopping. As Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data said in 2021 of renewable energy: 'In 2009, it was more than three times as expensive as coal. Now the script has flipped, and a new solar plant is almost three times cheaper than a new coal one. The price of electricity from solar declined by 89% between 2009 and 2019.' But even cheap is a misnomer: wind and sun are free and inexhaustible; you just need devices to collect the energy and transform it into electricity (and transmission lines to distribute it). Free energy! We need to get people to recognize that is what's on offer, along with energy independence – the real version, whereby if we do it right, we could build cooperatives, local (and hyperlocal or just autonomous individual) energy systems, thereby undermining predatory for-profit utilities companies as well as the fossil fuel industry. Renewable energy could be energy justice and energy democracy, as well as clean energy. An energy revolution is underway in this century, though it's unfolded in ways slow enough and technical enough for most people not to notice (and I assume it's nowhere near finished). It is astonishing – a powerful solution to the climate crisis and the depredations of the fossil fuel industry and for-profit utilities. Making it more visible would make more people more enthused about it as a solution, a promise, a possibility we can, should, must pursue swiftly and wholeheartedly. Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of No Straight Road Takes You There and Orwell's Roses
