Big Oil

House Committee Wraps Up Historic Investigation Into Oil Industry

December 19, 2022 Nick Cunningham, DeSmog. Educate! Big Oil, Congress, Energy, Oil and Gas

Congressional investigators released a new set of documents that underscored the oil and gas industry’s ongoing attempts to block climate policies and confuse the public about their long-term investments in fossil fuels. The latest tranche of documents caps off a nearly two-year investigation that appears set to come to an end with Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives in January. On December 9, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee published its latest set of documents as part of its ongoing investigation into the oil industry’s history of climate denial and obfuscation. The documents offer more evidence showing that the industry’s “greenwashing” continues up to the present day.

Greenwashing Governments And Oil Companies Turned COP27 Into A Disaster

November 20, 2022 Simon Pirani, Truthout. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, COP27, greenwashing

The international climate talks in Egypt — the 27th Conference of Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP27 — have become a dystopian nightmare: Oil companies, dictators and greenwashers captured the process more effectively than ever. But there is hope: Alliances are taking shape — between civil society, scientists and labor — that aim to break the fossil fuel companies’ deathly grip on climate policy. This year’s United Nations climate summit, which ends on November 17 at the luxury Sharm el-Sheikh resort, is the first to which oil and gas companies were invited to participate in the official program of events. Rachel Rose Jackson of Corporate Accountability commented that “COP27 looks like a fossil fuel industry trade show.”

More Than 600 Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Attend COP27

November 11, 2022 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, COP27, Fossil Fuels

At last year’s COP26 UN climate conference in Glasgow, there were more representatives from the fossil fuel industry, at more than 500, than from any individual country. At this year’s climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, that number has increased by more than 25 percent. An analysis from Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness found that there were at least 636 fossil fuel lobbyists registered at COP27, more than the combined delegations of the 10 countries most impacted by the climate crisis. The findings renewed calls to ban fossil fuel representatives from attending climate talks. “If you want to address malaria, you don’t invite the mosquitoes,” Phillip Jakpor of Public Participation Africa told BBC News.

Government Advisor Repeats ‘Russia Funded Anti-Fracking Protests’ Myth

September 24, 2022 Adam Barnett and Rachel Sherrington, DeSmog Blog. Educate! Anti-Russia, Big Oil, Fracking, United Kingdom (UK)

A trade advisor to the UK government has repeated a baseless claim that protests against fracking were funded by the Kremlin. Economist Catherine McBride, a member of the government’s Trade and Agriculture Commission advising on trade deals, said on GB News this week that Russia has given “billions of pounds” to green groups to “go and protest against fracking”. As DeSmog has reported previously, this claim has been promoted by opponents of climate action following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine despite there being no evidence to support it. Her remarks come after 24 MPs signed a letter last week organised by Net Zero Watch, the campaign arm of the climate science-denying Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), urging the government to scrap its moratorium on fracking for shale gas.

Internal Documents Show Big Oil PR Messages Still ‘Mislead’ Public

September 19, 2022 Nick Cunningham, DeSmog. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, Energy, Oil and Gas

New documents released by a congressional committee show that major oil companies, under pressure from the worsening climate crisis, have carefully crafted public messages to convey an effort of transitioning to cleaner technologies, but that the campaigns appear aimed at obscuring the fact that they remain “devoted to a long-term fossil fuel future,” the committee report states. The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a memo on September 14 that detailed documents and internal communications from oil companies including BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil, which show efforts to heavily promote their investments in promising technologies to address climate change, such as algae biofuels and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), while internally expressing doubt about the viability and immediacy of those investments.

Since 2021, Big Oil Has Spent Over $200 Million To Sabotage Climate Action

July 29, 2022 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Big Oil, Congress, Energy, Money in Politics

The oil and gas industry, one of the most powerful corporate forces in American politics, has spent more than $200 million over the past year and a half to stop Congress from slashing carbon emissions as evidence of their catastrophic impact—from deadly heatwaves to massive wildfires—continues to accumulate in stunning fashion. That topline estimate of the fossil fuel industry's lobbying outlays and congressional election spending in the U.S. was calculated by Climate Power, which provided its findings exclusively to Common Dreams. Nearly 80% of the industry's campaign donations during the time period examined went to Republican candidates, according to Climate Power, whose analysis draws on data from OpenSecrets.

When Scabs Are A Danger To Public Health

November 15, 2021 Halsey Hazzard, In These Times. Resist! Big Oil, Labor Unions, New York (NY), Worker Rights and Jobs

A dozen oil workers rally in front of the United Metro Energy (UMEC) terminal in Brooklyn on their 113th day on strike August 10. They’re fighting one of the largest suppliers of heating oil and motor fuels in New York. The strike began months prior, on April 19. After workers spent one of the hottest summers in decades on the picket line, the rally provided a much-needed morale boost. The workers were joined by dozens of supporters, including fellow Teamsters and some perhaps unexpected allies — four of New York City’s elected democratic socialists, all of whom campaigned for the drastic reduction of fossil fuel use.

Oil Industry Bigwigs Given Platform At COP26 Despite Organisers’ Claims

November 2, 2021 Adam Ramsay, Open Democracy. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, COP26, Energy

Representatives of major oil companies including BP will be speaking at COP26, despite reassurances from organisers that they wouldn’t be welcome, a programme from inside the venue reveals. Last month, it was revealed that oil companies including BP were being excluded from official roles at COP26, with organisers casting doubt on the firms’ claimed ambitions to eliminate carbon emissions. At the time, the exclusion was seen as a victory for environmental campaigners, who have long called for major polluters to be excluded from UN climate conferences. However, a programme of events obtained by openDemocracy reveals that representatives of Big Oil have been allowed into the conference under the umbrella of a trade association that has a stall at the heart of COP26.

The Dirty Dozen Documents Of Big Oil’s Secret Climate Knowledge

November 1, 2021 Paul D. Thacker, DeSmog. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, Energy, Fossil Fuels

“Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes,” said ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy. “Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that.” These are the words McCoy was caught saying on a secretly recorded video released by Unearthed, Greenpeace U.K.’s investigative journalism arm, and the British Channel 4 News this summer exposing how the oil giant and lobby groups such as the American Petroleum Institute seed doubt about climate change and undermine legislation to stop global warming. These revelations quickly spurred calls for Congress to investigate Exxon’s and other fossil fuel companies’ efforts to obstruct climate action.

For The First Time, Big Oil Is Held Liable For Climate Change

May 27, 2021 Paola Rosa-Aquino, New York Magazine. Resist! Accountability, Big Oil, climate crisis, Shell Oil

A Dutch court on Wednesday ruled Royal Dutch Shell must dramatically reduce its carbon emissions because of its contributions to climate change, the first time a fossil-fuel company has been held legally liable for its role in heating up the planet. The landmark decision could set a precedent for similar cases against oil, gas, and coal industries. The Hague District Court ruled that the energy giant has a “duty of care” to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and that its current reduction plans are not concrete enough. According to the court’s judgment, the company must slash its emissions by 45 percent by 2030, from 2019 levels, to meet global climate goals under the Paris Agreement — a much higher reduction than Shell’s current aim of lowering its emissions 20 percent in that same amount of time.

Could Baltimore’s Climate Change Suit Become A Supreme Court Test Case?

January 20, 2021 David Hasemyer, Inside Climate News. Resist! Big Oil, climate crisis, Maryland, US Supreme Court

What began as a narrow jurisdictional question to be argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a climate change lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore could take on far greater implications if the high court agrees with major oil companies to expand its purview and consider whether federal, rather than state courts, are the appropriate venue for the city’s case and possibly a host of similar lawsuits. The high court initially agreed to hear a request by the oil and gas industry to review a ruling by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which the court affirmed a federal district judge’s decision to allow Baltimore’s lawsuit to be tried in state, rather than federal, court based on a single jurisdiction rule.

Scheer Intelligence: How Big Oil Weaponized The Judicial System

October 16, 2020 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Big Oil, Chevron, Ecuador, Podcast

Steve Donziger has dedicated the latter part of his life to fighting oil companies’ greedy destruction of indigenous lands and peoples in the Amazon. After a decades-long legal battle against Chevron, which Chris Hedges details in a recent column for Scheerpost, Donziger was charged with misdemeanor civil contempt for refusing New York Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s orders to turn over to Chevron his client communications—which would force him to violate attorney-client privilege— his personal electronics, his passport and to cease trying to collect the $9.5 billion from Chevron for his Indigenous clients.

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