Welcome to our final OilWire of 2019! For this busy time of year, we’ve kept it to a few new headlines, from Goldman Sachs ruling out financing for Arctic oil extraction to the “f-words” finally surfacing at UN climate talks.
OilWire #18: Big #FossilFreeEIB win; the Production Gap revealed; Saudi Aramco fizzles
The Production Gap report adds a major new piece to the growing body of research showing that tackling fossil fuel production is critical to meeting the Paris goals.
OilWire #17: Exxon on trial; Indigenous resistance wins in Ecuador; Germany vs. #FossilFreeEIB
The Guardian published new data this month that shows just how far in the wrong direction Shell and other oil companies plan to go over the next decade. The top 50 oil and gas companies are set to increase their production by 8 percent between 2018 and 2030.
OilWire #16: How to deprive Big Oil of its oxygen; Denmark’s North Sea climate test; U.S. $ fracks Argentina
From the United States to Kenya to Australia, one of the fundamental demands of the four million youth and elders who joined the global #ClimateStrike last Friday was to keep oil, gas, and coal in the ground.
OilWire #14: South African court halts fracking; LNG collides with climate goals; ‘Fossil fuel welfare’ explained
Global Energy Monitor released a new report this month that unpacks the results of its survey of proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals around the world. As CNN summed it up, the results show a massive LNG buildout on a “collision course” with global climate goals.
OilWire #13: First Nations vow to stop TMX (again); Gas vs. the Paris goals; Largest LNG project in Africa OK’d
Following a wave of youth-led protests, rising citizen concern, and mounting climate destruction, several governments have recently declared a “climate emergency” or proposed new goals for reducing pollution. However, many of these same governments – Canada, the UK, and Ireland being prime examples – are acting at cross-purposes to their commitments.
OilWire #12: Waorani win in Ecuador; Shell, BP evade real emissions cuts; Gas permits denied by 2 U.S. states
This week, both Shell and BP claimed that their plans are aligned with the Paris Agreement, while diverting attention away from what really counts towards meeting it: reducing actual carbon emissions.
OilWire Issue #11: #OilFreeLofoten victory; Is the IEA like Google Maps?; The dirtiest banks since Paris
“When I use Google Maps, it gives me several options, but I usually take the one it highlights without thinking too much about it. Do energy and climate road maps work the same way?,” asked Liam Denning in a recent column for Bloomberg. In the text that follows, Denning lays out why more than 60 prominent business leaders, investors, and climate scientists sent a letter to the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) earlier this month.
OilWire Issue #10: Norway makes Big Oil nervous; Enbridge delays Line 3; ‘Fight for the Bight’ heats up
As we head into annual meeting season, oil majors are under pressure to respond to investors skeptical of their future profitability under climate constraints, or what the Financial Times terms the industry’s “existential crisis.” That pressure ratcheted up last week when Norway’s government moved to divest the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund from upstream exploration and production companies.
OilWire Issue #9: U.S. youth seek permit freeze; Irish court puts LNG on hold; Oil majors eye South Africa
“[T]he market cannot solve climate change by itself. Muscular government action is needed,” writes The Economist in a February cover issue. The cutting edge of climate policy lies in active government intervention to manage the decline of fossil fuels and ramp up renewable energy.