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Climate Change

Exxon & Chevron Face Shareholder Challenges On Climate Change

May 31, 2017 Staff, www.prnewswire.com , , ,
By Staff of PR Newswire - DALLAS, May 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ExxonMobil and Chevron will host simultaneous annual meetings on Wednesday, May 31 in Dallas and Midland, TX respectively, and face shareholders who want the oil giants to start dealing with the realities of life in a carbon-constrained world. At Chevron (proposal #8), a first-time resolution filed jointly by Arjuna Capital and As You Sow, with co-filer Baldwin Brothers Inc., asks for a detailed report assessing how the company can respond to climate change and the resultant transition to a low-carbon economy. The proposal asks Chevron to evaluate the feasibility of altering the company's energy mix, separating or selling its highest carbon-risk assets, divisions, and subsidiaries, and/or buying or merging with companies with outstanding assets or technologies in low carbon or renewable energy.

Climate Policies Could Boost Economic Growth By 5%, OECD Says

May 27, 2017 Marianne Lavelle, www.insideclimatenews.org ,
By Marianne Lavelle for Inside Climate News - The world's major economies could boost their long-term economic growth by 2.8 percent with policies that lower greenhouse gas emissions and boost resilience to climate change impacts, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in a new analysis. That rises to nearly 5 percent mid-century when the economic benefits of avoiding future impacts of climate change are factored in. "Far from being a dampener on growth, integrating climate action into growth policies can have a positive economic impact," Angel Gurría, secretary-general of OECD, said Tuesday at an international meeting on climate hosted by the German government in Berlin. The new figures bolstered a theme that has been sounded repeatedly by the OECD, the research and policy organization that represents developed nations. "There is no economic excuse for not acting on climate change, and the urgency to act is high," Gurría said. OECD economists estimate that the major economies in the G20 could add 1 percent to average economic output by 2021 and lift their 2050 output by up to 2.8 percent through economic policies that are shaped to address climate change.

Exxon Climate Fraud Investigation Widens Over Missing ‘Wayne Tracker’ Emails

May 22, 2017 David Hasemyer, www.insideclimatenews.org , ,
By David Hasemyer for Inside Climate News - The probe of ExxonMobil by the New York Attorney General's Office is widening. Investigators have taken depositions of company executives and issued additional subpoenas to determine whether the company may have destroyed evidence connected to an alias email used by former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson. The disclosure was made Friday in arguments filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in a Manhattan federal court. He is seeking dismissal of a request by Exxon for an injunction that would halt his investigation into the oil giant involving whether it misled shareholders and the public about the risks of climate change. Attorneys for Schneiderman did not elaborate in the 25-page document on the scope of the expanded investigation other than to suggest that it involved the recent disclosure that Tillerson, now U.S. secretary of state, used an email alias when discussing issues including climate change and the risk that it posed to the company. New York and Massachusetts investigators denounced the company's attempt in federal court to derail their parallel inquiries as a vexatious legal tactic that has no chance of succeeding.

Leaked Draft Shows U.S. Weakened Climate Change Wording In Arctic Declaration

May 20, 2017 Sabrina Shankman, www.insideclimatenews.org , ,
By Sabrina Shankman for Inside Climate News - The day before the Arctic Council met for its biannual ministerial last week, the United States requested six changes to the intergovernmental declaration that was to be issued—each of which weakened the language on climate change. The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental body representing all eight Arctic states, does not make policy, but the diplomatic work accomplished there is intended to trickle back to the countries and result in changes. An important part of that is the declaration issued at the end of each two-year chairmanship, which is signed by top officials from each country, to acknowledge the scientific and diplomatic work that was accomplished and to state the council's goals going forward. The last-minute move by the United States to weaken the document can be seen as a test case for what we can expect at larger, more consequential meetings of international organizations dealing with global warming issues and policy as President Donald Trump rolls back U.S. climate policies and backslides on international commitments.

China, India To Reach Climate Goals Years Early, As U.S. Likely To Fall Far Short

May 18, 2017 Marianne Lavelle, www.insideclimatenews.org , , ,
By Marianne Lavelle for Inside Climate News - Slowing coal use in China and India has put the world's two most populous countries on track to beat their carbon emission goals under the Paris climate agreement, according to a new analysis. Greenhouse gas emissions from both countries are growing more slowly than they predicted just a year ago, and the difference is substantial—roughly 2 to 3 billion tons annually by the year 2030. That would be enough to more than offset the relatively poor performance expected from the United States as President Donald Trump rolls back controls and puts the U.S. on track to miss its Paris pledge. The forecasts were issued by Climate Action Tracker, a consortium of three international research organizations, as negotiators from around the world met in Bonn, Germany, to carry out the global climate treaty's work. "Five years ago, the idea of either China or India stopping—or even slowing—coal use was considered an insurmountable hurdle, as coal-fired power plants were thought by many to be necessary to satisfy the energy demands of these countries," said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, one of the research consortium members.

Restoring The Heartland And Rustbelt

May 12, 2017 Steve Ongerth, www.ecology.iww.org , , ,
By Steve Ongerth of the IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus. The world faces a crises of enormous proportions. Global warming, caused by the continued burning of fossil fuels, threatens life on Earth as we know it, and yet, those most responsible for causing the crisis, the fossil fuel wing of the capitalist class, seems hell bent on doubling down on business as usual. One might think, given all of these situations, that…well, to put it mildly…we’re doomed. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, in spite of the bleakness of these circumstances, a deeper look behind them reveals that fossil fuel capitalism is in terminal decline, that their hold over the our lives hangs by a thread, so much that we the people, the workers and peasants of the world, have the ability to transform the human existence to one based not on plundering the Earth and exploiting the masses for the profit of a few, but one based on true grassroots democracy, free of suffering and want, and one that exists in harmony with the Earth.

Could FOIA Force Trump Administration To Restore Missing Climate Data?

May 11, 2017 Nicholas Kusnetz, www.insideclimatenews.org , ,
By Nicholas Kusnetz for Inside Climate News - As Donald Trump's administration continues to strip climate change information from federal websites, two advocacy groups and a conservation biologist are using a novel technique to try to force the government to republish the pages. A new provision in open records law, added by Congress last year, requires agencies to publish electronically any information that is requested at least three times through the federal Freedom of Information Act, so long as that information is not otherwise exempt from disclosure. Last week, the advocacy groups and the biologist submitted identical requests for climate change information, hoping to trigger that provision, and they just might succeed. "The law is pretty explicit," said Aaron Mackey, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes transparency. "The law just says, if you get three, then you have to affirmatively disclose it. This should work." The effort by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Media and Democracy, and Stuart Pimm, a professor at Duke University...

Activists March To Trump Hotel, Urge President To ‘Wake Up’ To Climate Change

May 11, 2017 Mark Hand, www.thinkprogress.org , , ,
By Mark Hand for Think Progress - WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump is reportedly weighing whether to remove the United States from the Paris climate accord, a move most scientists and climate activists believe would be disastrous to the goal of limiting increases in the planet’s temperature through a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In recent weeks, the president has heard from a diverse coalition of business groups that support remaining in the Paris accord. And the Trump administration also continues to hear from activists who for the past two decades have tried to convince policy-makers to make climate change a top priority. A large group of climate activists marched on the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Tuesday morning to demand that Trump “wake up” to the perils of climate change and not pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. Organizers behind the Peoples Climate March planned the rally. “It’s critical for the United States to be in the Paris agreement,” Sebi Medina-Tayac, an organizer of Tuesday’s rally, told ThinkProgress. “We see a situation where we have one highly unstable person who is in charge of the fate of millions, if not billions, of people.” When organizers were planning the rally, they briefly considered whether they should reach out to the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, to request that she “please help us,” he said.

Climate Change Already Forcing 17 U.S. Communities To Move

May 6, 2017 Sara , www.nola.com ,
By Sara Sneath for NOLA.com - Climate change could force tens of thousands of U.S. residents to move this century. But 17 communities already face that threat, and most of these are Native American, according to a new academic analysis. One of them is the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe, which lives on Isle de Jean Charles. The tribe has been awarded a $48.3 million grant from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to move from its remaining sliver of land in Terrebonne Parish. But the new report, released Wednesday (May 3) by the Center for Progressive Reform, lays out other ways for indigenous communities to buy land as their homes buckle from melting permafrost or are swallowed by rising seas. One of the report's three authors, Loyola University law professor Robert R.M. Verchick, said he hopes that the analysis achieves two things...

The U.S. Is On A Historic Streak Of Record Highs

May 6, 2017 Brian Kahn, www.climatecentral.org ,
By Brian Kahn for Climate Central - The U.S. is on a hot streak like no other. April marked yet another month where record highs outpaced record lows. It’s the 29th month in a row with the odds tipped in favor of record highs, 10 months longer than the previous stretch where highs beat lows in 2011-12. Embedded within the historic warm streak are a series of records-setting records. Every month of 2015 and 2016 saw more highs than lows, making them two of the only three calendar years that’s happened. The record high-to-low ratio this February was 49-to-1, making it the most lopsided month ever recorded (besting a record set in November 2016, no less). The monthly record stretch belies a larger trend where the ratio of record highs to lows has been growing disproportionately with each passing decade. That’s due largely to rising background temperatures driven by increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Radical Art, Sweet Potatoes & Mainstream Parades

May 5, 2017 Eleanor Goldfied, www.vox.com , ,
By Eleanor Goldfied for Occupy - The People’s Climate March was this past weekend and roughly 200,000 people descended on Washington, DC to walk along Pennsylvania Ave, past the White House and up to the Washington Monument where speakers and musicians worked the crowd in a festival like setting. And while the energy brought in particular by indigenous and frontline communities was powerful, the march felt very much like a parade and as Dissentralized Organizer Jimmy Betts put it exemplified the “messterpiece of NGO-dom.” While the Climate March garnered most if not all the media attention, the day before, activists picketed and protested outside of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - calling for an end to the blanket rubber stamping of dirty energy projects including the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Even further outside the media gaze was the Uptown Art House, a flat structure community art space where indigenous, borderlands undocumented, black, white and everyone beyond and in between gathered together to create art and share ideas and inspiration. This compilation serves as a platform for the people involved in the building of movements, in fighting the frontline battles and in walking the walk.

Indigenous Youth Took Center Stage At People’s Climate March

May 5, 2017 Cherri Foytlin, www.alternet.org , , , ,
By Cherri Foytlin for AlterNet - The ceremony, which welcomed the spirits from the four directions, officially opened the People’s Climate March, a massive show of resistance on a day that also marked Trump’s 100th day in office. Within a few hours, the youth would be braving record heat, to take the lead of the 1.5 mile march, which covered eight city blocks and ended near the Washington monument. As participants made their way along the route, gigantic banners, puppets and signs could be seen above the crowd. “Water is Life,” “Native Nations Rise,” “Defend the Sacred,” and “Respect the Rights of Mother Earth,” were some of the messages. As the convoy reached the White House, the crowd sang and native drum lines took to the front. Merlejohn Lone Eagle, from Bridger, South Dakota, was among them. Although he is only 13, Merlejohn is already an experienced pipeline fighter. He said he worked with youth in his community to send videos to President Obama showing their opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. He was overjoyed in the fall of 2015 when Obama rejected the pipeline.

Stories Of Resistance And Resilience From The Pacific Islands To Canada

May 4, 2017 Staff, www.medium.com , ,
By Staff of 350.org - The Canadian tar sands are one of the dirtiest sites of fossil fuel extraction in the world. Carbon emissions from the tar sands are one of the biggest drivers of climate change globally, and locally, they poison the lands and water, contributing to health and environmental crises which disproportionately impact Indigenous communities. Pipelines are the arteries of this oil patch — they make it economically viable to continue expanding the tar sands. That’s why an Indigenous-led social movement in North America has emerged opposing pipelines like Northern Gateway, Kinder Morgan, Keystone XL, and Energy East. The Pacific Climate Warriors will start their journey in Canada by visiting the tar sands to bring their prayers of hope and healing right to the heart of the destruction. While they are there, they will meet and build solidarity with Indigenous peoples opposing the tar sands from the front lines and show them that they are seen and heard in the Pacific.

Staten Island Climate March Links Economics And Environmental Issues

May 3, 2017 Thomas Altfather Good, www.wordpress.com , ,
By Thomas Altfather Good for National Writers Union - STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — April 29, 2017. On a unseasonably warm Saturday hundreds of Islanders assembled in Staten Island’s Midland Beach, a coastal community ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, to demand Climate Justice from the Trump Administration — linking economic and environmental issues. Workers from several local unions – including CWA Local 1102 and IBEW Local 3 – peace and environmental activists, and members of immigrant rights organizations gathered on Staten Island’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt boardwalk on Saturday. The protesters rallied and marched to demand climate justice from a president who appears to spend more time lounging in Mar-a-Lago and holding victory rallies than addressing pressing issues in a meaningful way. Organized by two local advocacy organizations, Sustainable Staten Island and Move Forward Staten Island, with a broad coalition of labor unions, immigration rights groups, environmental justice, social justice and other community organizations from throughout New York City, the event was timed to coinicide with climate marches held in other cities.

What I Said At The Peace Hub Of The Climate March

May 1, 2017 David Swanson, www.davidswanson.org , ,
By David Swanson for Let's Try Democracy - Most countries on earth have the U.S. military in them. Most countries on earth burn less fossil fuel than does the U.S. military. And that's without even calculating how much worse for the climate jet fuel is than other fossil fuels. And it's without even considering the fossil fuel consumption of the world's leading weapons makers, or the pollution caused by the use of those weapons all over the world. The U.S. is the top weapons dealer to the world, and has weapons on multiple sides of most wars. The U.S. military created 69% of super fund environmental disaster sites and is the third leading polluter of U.S. waterways. When the British first developed an obsession with the Middle East, passed along to the United States, the desire was to fuel the British Navy. What came first? The wars or the oil? It was the wars. Wars and the preparations for more wars consume a huge amount of oil.
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