What must climate and energy policy really achieve? It’s time for a …Climate Reality Check 2020
The Australian Government is dangerously out-of-touch as climate change accelerates and a cascade of tipping points risks unstoppable global warming.
The Australian Government is dangerously out-of-touch as climate change accelerates and a cascade of tipping points risks unstoppable global warming.
These days American politics are a little like Russian nesting dolls—there are stories, within stories, within stories.
Countries which are heavily invested in nuclear energy remain higher CO2 emitters, on average, than countries which have invested at the same level in renewable energy. This is the main finding of a study recently published in the journal Nature Energy.
In her concluding remarks, Charlotte makes no bones about America’s future prospects as a player in the oil game. She sees America steadily losing ground as the costs of its empire and its endless oil wars inexorably mount, and as more and more countries make deals with its oil-rich adversaries.
Fracking came on stream more than 15 years ago during a period of high oil prices and cheap credit. But the industry then tanked global prices for oil and methane with rampant overproduction in North America.
These days, methane emissions have become an industry black eye, to the point that major players are now clamoring for regulations after the Trump administration recently finalized the rollback of Obama-era rules meant to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas.
But Shell and BP ― the second- and fourth-largest oil companies by revenue last year ― are still active members of at least eight trade organisations lobbying against climate measures in the United States and Australia that were not disclosed in the public reviews, an Unearthed and HuffPost investigation has found.
Long after Trump is a footnote in history, his impact on the environment will still be felt. For progressives and moderates alike, the horrors of a Trump presidency are cloaked in judicial robes.
The TEQs system involves rationing fossil fuel energy use for a nation on the basis of either a contracting carbon emission budget or scarce fuel availability, or both simultaneously, distributing budgets equitably amongst energy-users.
The world has already passed “peak oil” demand, according to Carbon Brief analysis of the latest energy outlook from oil major BP.
But facts, as the saying goes, are stubborn things. And the world we live in today has already changed significantly from the world that existed in 1989, when messaging around plastics, even if untrue, was enough to affect reality for the oil industry.
Yes, confronting the climate crisis will require a switch from ‘dirty’ to ‘clean’ power. But it also demands a radical reconfiguration of environmental power dynamics.