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Fossil Fuels

A Primer On the Petrodollar And The War On Iran

April 17, 2026 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. , , ,
As you and I worry about how war and inflation will impact our families and nations, bond traders are fixated on the numbers on their screens, calculating what might happen to seemingly arcane financial instruments. Their job is to protect the treasure of the wealthy. For the past fifty years, the relative stability of the US dollar – above all as embodied in US Treasury securities – has rested in part on what is called the ‘petrodollar’ system. When petroleum prices are relatively stable, the costs of production and transport are more predictable, inflation is easier to contain, and the prices of bonds and other financial assets are less likely to swing wildly.

Top Brussels Official Urges Europeans To Work From Home, Drive Less

April 1, 2026 James Fernyhough, Elena Giordano, Ben Munster and Ben Makuch, Politico. , , ,
Brussels — The European Commission has urged people to work from home, drive and fly less, and for EU countries to urgently roll out renewables, as it warned of a prolonged energy crisis as a result of the conflict in the Gulf. In a speech with echoes of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen said Europe was facing a "very serious situation" with no clear end in sight. “Even if ... peace is here tomorrow, still we will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future," he said, following an extraordinary meeting of the EU's 27 energy ministers on Tuesday to discuss the crisis.

As War On Iran Continues, European Climate Law Could Be At Risk

April 1, 2026 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. , , , ,
Major oil and gas lobby groups are leveraging energy shortages during the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran to call on the European Union to pause its regulations on methane, a powerful climate pollutant. If successful, the delay could help pave the way for a marked expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure across the United States. Two industry groups, the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) and Fuels Europe, urged policymakers earlier this month to stop the next phases of the law’s implementation until “targeted adjustments” could be made.

Iran Tells Saudi Arabia, Qatar And UAE To Evacuate Energy Facilities

March 18, 2026 Alex MacDonald, Middle East Eye. , , , ,
Iran has ordered Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE to evacuate their petrochemical facilities, implying an impending attack. The warning, issued from state media, comes shortly after a US-Israeli attack on the South Pars gas field in Iran. It said the facilities would be targeted by strikes "in the coming hours" and would target Saudi Arabia's Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex, the UAE's Al Hosn Gas Field, and Qatar's Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex, Mesaieed Holding Company and Ras Laffan Refinery. "These centres have become direct and legitimate targets and will be targeted in the coming hours.

Big Oil Knew It Was Wrecking Louisiana’s Coast

March 17, 2026 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. , , , ,
Scott Eustis is doing what he can to keep Louisiana afloat. As a veteran wetland and fisheries researcher and lifelong resident, he says he is sure of what caused the damage to the state’s delicate marshlands and drowning coast: the oil drilling that employed his grandfather decades prior. “My granddad worked for these companies,” said Eustis. “If he were still alive, he would tell you, straight up: They owe us the land.”  For a century, oil companies dredged canals through coastal wetlands, dissecting marshes to get to and from wells, and dumped toxic wastewater into marshes and unlined earthen pits. Those wells, canals, pits, and leftover pollution were largely abandoned.

Civil Rights Case Probes Racism Behind Cancer Alley Pollution

March 16, 2026 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. , , ,
A major environmental justice case tying slavery’s legacy to Cancer Alley reached a new phase after a judge rejected defendants’ motion to dismiss last month. The lawsuit centers on claims that St. James Parish in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, where many industrial sites are located on former plantations where people were enslaved, violated the U.S. Constitution by pushing polluting industry into Black communities. “In their complaint, Plaintiffs tell the story of how plantations gave way to industrial facilities that now endanger black residents’ health, negatively impact their quality of life, and desecrate the unmarked cemeteries of their ancestors,” District Judge Carl Barbier wrote.

Michigan Sues Fossil Fuel Companies While Alberta Protects Them

February 16, 2026 Mitch Anderson, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Has the fossil fuel industry been engaged in a decades-long illicit conspiracy to kneecap the accelerating transition to clean energy? The government of Michigan thinks so. State Attorney General Dana Nessel recently filed a 126-page lawsuit against the American Petroleum Institute and four of the biggest oil companies, Exxon, BP, Chevron and Shell, alleging they acted as an anti-competitive cartel to limit consumer choice and protect their polluting industry from cheaper and cleaner alternatives. According to Nessel, higher energy costs imposed on residents and businesses in her state “are not the result of natural economic inflation, but due to the greed of these corporations who prioritized their own profit and marketplace dominance over competition and consumer savings.”

The Winter Olympics In Trouble?

February 15, 2026 Robert Hunziker, Counter Punch. , , , ,
One Hundred Percent (100%) of Olympians believe excessive levels of climate change are real and a serious threat to ecosystems that support life. That is an intentional lie, but it may very well be true. Nobody experiences the upheaval of climate change like Olympians. “I couldn’t watch it happen and not say anything about it.” (Bea Kim, snowboarder Olympian from California, Can the Winter Olympics be Saved? Talking Climate, Feb. 11, 2026) Bea is a member of POW (Protect Our Winters Now) founded by Jeremy Jones, a U.S. snowboarder. A POW letter signed by over 200 ski professionals addressed the International Ski and Snowboard Federation’s failure to support climate polices.

Michigan, The Auto State, Is Suing Big Oil

February 8, 2026 Emily Sanders, ExxonKnews. , , , ,
Imagine, if you will, a parallel universe. The state of Michigan, home of America’s auto industry, is a thriving hub for electric vehicles. They are not “a fringe technology or a luxury alternative,” but rather, “a common sight in every neighborhood — rolling off assembly lines in Flint, parked in driveways in Dearborn, charging outside grocery stores in Grand Rapids, and running quietly down Woodward Avenue.” That Michigan could have existed by now, a new lawsuit brought by state Attorney General Dana Nessel argues, if four major oil companies and their biggest trade group hadn’t conspired to block it for decades.

It’s Time To Make Polluters Pay For The Climate Crisis

January 30, 2026 Kimberly Ong, NRDC. , , ,
This week, people across the country are gathering to demand that the oil and gas industry clean up the mess it made by helping to pay for the costs of climate change.    And boy, is there a mess. We’re deep in the middle of a climate crisis—one that is predominantly caused by the burning of fossil fuels.  Indeed, it’s hard to find a single person in the United States who has been left unscathed by climate change. Since 2011, 99.5 percent of congressional districts experienced at least one federally declared major disaster due to extreme weather. 

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are Leading The US And EU Into Industrial Decline

January 15, 2026 David Goeßmann, Truthout. , , , ,
Since Donald Trump took office, the U.S. government has been more aggressively boosting fossil fuels to exert geopolitical dominance. President Donald Trump stated unequivocally that the military assault on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife are aimed at gaining control of the country’s oil reserves. Meanwhile, oil company shares are soaring, a dividend on the investments of “Big Oil,” the major donor to Trump’s election campaign. It is also no coincidence that Nigeria (which the U.S. bombed over Christmas) and Iran and Greenland, which Trump repeatedly threatens, are oil-rich regions, too.

A Big Oil PR Firm Helped Top UK Cultural Institutions Defend Fossil Fuel Sponsorships

December 21, 2025 Ellen Ormesher and Kathryn Clare, DeSmog. , , , ,
Sadler’s Wells, a top performing arts theatre in London, hired one of the United Kingdom’s biggest public relations agencies — and one with close ties to the oil industry — to help it defend a sponsorship deal with Barclays. Brunswick Group — whose clients have included oil giants BP, Shell, and Aramco, as well as Barclays, a major financier of fossil fuel development — drafted a May 23 letter to the Financial Times defending corporate sponsorships of the arts, and signed by Sadler’s Wells and 10 other leading UK cultural institutions, according to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by campaign group Culture Unstained and shared with DeSmog.

Proposed EPA Cuts Further Imperil Environmental Protections In Cash-Strapped States

December 17, 2025 Joe Fassler, DeSmog. , , ,
Massive cuts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have hampered state-level regulators’ ability to rein in pollution, according to a new report. And now, with the Trump administration pushing for even deeper cuts at the agency in 2026, many states across the country may be in a dire position. “If EPA’s capacity to do its job is further diminished, how prepared are our states to shoulder more responsibility for protecting us from these threats? Unfortunately, not well,” Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the nonprofit behind the report, said in a Wednesday press conference on the findings.

The Koch Network Is Pushing Trump To Accelerate AI

December 15, 2025 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. , , , , ,
A political group created by oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch earlier this year wrote to a branch of the U.S. government making requests about artificial intelligence. “To seize the moment and ensure that AI can meet its true promise and potential,” it argued in March to the National Coordination Office, a federal body tasked by Donald Trump at the time with developing an AI Action Plan, the administration should “clear the red tape” preventing “energy innovators” from supplying the massive amounts of electricity required to power new AI data centers across the country.

Exxon’s Next Supreme Court Play

December 8, 2025 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. , , ,
Facing a growing number of lawsuits that could hold them liable for billions of dollars in climate damages, oil companies for the fifth time in three years are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the cases before they can reach trial. This time, ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy want the justices to overturn a decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, which ruled that a lawsuit brought against the two companies by the city and county of Boulder could move forward earlier this year. The Colorado Supreme Court found that the state law claims against the companies were not preempted by federal law. The potential stakes of the case were brought into sharp focus in 2021, when the Marshall Fire — the most destructive wildfire in Colorado state history — killed two people, burned down more than a thousand homes in Boulder County, and caused at least $2 billion in damages.
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