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Oil and Gas Industry

New York To Charge Biggest Emitters For Climate Damages Under New Law

December 28, 2024 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. , , , ,
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Climate Change Superfund Act, which requires major emitters, such as fossil fuel companies, to compensate for damages by helping to fund climate-resilient infrastructure projects. “By signing the Climate Change Superfund Act, Gov. Hochul is addressing the financial burden placed on New Yorkers by the fossil fuel companies,” Richard Schrader, director of New York Government Affairs at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement. “It’s a key example of what putting fiscal fairness and environmental justice front and center looks like.

New Report Shows A Surge In European SLAPP Suits

December 21, 2024 Stella Levantesi, DeSmog. , , , , , ,
Lawsuits to silence those speaking out and fighting in the interest of the public are increasingly being used as a form of private censorship, according to a new report published last week by the Coalition Against SLAPPS in Europe, or CASE. Developed in collaboration with the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, the report shows that SLAPPs continue to rise in Europe and identifies a total of 1,049 cases between 2010-2023. The lawsuits cover a broad range of topics, and environmental issues made up the second-most-targeted subject of all the SLAPP suits reported, behind corruption.

How Exxon And Atlas Network Worked To Block Global Climate Action

December 9, 2024 Anne-Sophie Simpère, DeSmog. , , , , ,
In March 1999, Alejandro Chafuen, then president of an international free-market coalition called Atlas Network, wrote to an executive at ExxonMobil (XOM) to offer the American oil major a friendly note of appreciation. “On behalf of Atlas and the institutes it supports, we would like to thank you again for the Exxon Corporation’s generous contributions,” Chafuen stated, “and for the confidence you and Exxon have placed in us.” Included in the letter to William E. Hale of ExxonMobil’s public affairs department was a five-page summary of the global reach and diversity of the activities the corporation funded in 1998, “in whole or in part,” through donations to Atlas Network’s “Energy and Environment: Market-based Solutions”.

‘Give Trees A Hand’: Ad Agencies Sell Sketchy Climate Solutions

November 18, 2024 Ellen Ormesher, DeSmog. , , , , ,
The video opens on an anonymous industrial site, where a woman stands under a clear blue sky. She’s wearing a white hard hat and a grey utility shirt with the name “Regina” stitched above the breast pocket. Smiling into the camera, she tells viewers that “the world needs ways to reduce carbon emissions.” Speakers from diverse backgrounds then reassure viewers that, luckily, they’re working on solutions to that very problem, “like carbon capture, and clean energy from hydrogen.” If it weren’t for the logos appearing on their uniforms, it would be easy to miss that these characters are representatives of one of the world’s biggest oil companies — until Regina reappears to say, “Believe it or not we’re ExxonMobil.”

Toronto And Montreal Move Ahead With Fossil Fuel Ad Restrictions

October 18, 2024 Taylor Noakes, DeSmog. , , , , , , , ,
The city of Toronto has passed a motion aiming to restrict fossil fuel advertising on municipal property, one of several recent efforts to curtail fossil fuel advertising in major Canadian cities. The motion passed on Thursday, October 10, giving Toronto city councillors one year to come up with a draft of the proposed legislation. The effort comes as transit agencies in Canada’s two largest cities have either implemented or are considering similar restrictions on using public transit to advertise for Big Oil or related industries.

The First Gas Utility Sued For Climate Deception

October 16, 2024 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. , , , , , ,
For the first time, a gas utility could be on the hook for its role in deceiving the public about the climate crisis. Multnomah, Oregon, has added NW Natural — Oregon’s oldest and largest supplier of “natural” gas, also known as fossil or methane gas — to the list of defendants in a lawsuit that seeks to make fossil fuel companies pay $52 billion for their role in the deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. NW Natural “has routinely misrepresented” the climate harms of gas while undermining the energy transition “in an effort to frighten customers and discourage policy makers from using their authority to protect the public,” according to the county’s amended complaint.

Ecuador Voted To Stop Drilling In The Amazon

October 15, 2024 Adem Ay, Waging Nonviolence. , , , ,
Environmental activists rarely get to celebrate a major win for the planet, but that’s what happened in Ecuador last year. After a decade-long struggle between activists and the government, a referendum was held in August 2023 on whether to continue drilling for oil in a protected part of the Amazon. The people voted to kick the oil industry out. The government and the state oil company, Petroecuador, had tried every trick in the book to get a different result. There was a disinformation campaign, threats of austerity, even an attempt to void hundreds of thousands of signatures that were collected for the referendum to happen.

Greenpeace Is Being ‘SLAPPed’ Again By Another Fossil Fuel Giant

October 13, 2024 The Canary. , , , , ,
Italian fossil fuel company ENI has filed an official Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), targeting two organisations, Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon. It is the latest fossil fuel major to launch an ill-founded legal assault at a Greenpeace organisation, joining Shell, Total, and Energy Transfer in an attack against civil freedoms and environmental protection. “There is no surprise in ENI joining other climate polluters like Shell, TotalEnergies and Energy Transfer in trying to silence civil society. The business model of the oil and gas industry entails both an assault on people and nature, as well as oppression of those who call it out,” stated Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon.

How The Fossil Fuel Industry Helps Spread Anti-Protest Laws Across US

October 1, 2024 Hilary Beaumont and Nina Lakhani, Portside. , , , ,
Fossil fuel lobbyists coordinated with lawmakers behind the scenes and across state lines to push and shape laws that are escalating a crackdown on peaceful protests against oil and gas expansion, a new Guardian investigation reveals. Records obtained by the Guardian show that lobbyists working for major North American oil and gas companies were key architects of anti-protest laws that increase penalties and could lead to non-violent environmental and climate activists being imprisoned up to 10 years. Emails between fossil fuel lobbyists and lawmakers in Utah, West Virginia, Idaho and Ohio suggest a nationwide strategy to deter people frustrated by government failure to tackle the climate crisis from peacefully disrupting the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure by enacting tough laws with lengthy jail sentences.

Climate Lawsuits Against Fossil Fuel Companies Have Nearly Tripled

September 13, 2024 Oil Change International. , , , ,
Washington, DC – 86 climate lawsuits have been filed against the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal producing corporations – including BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies – with two in five cases involving claims for compensation for climate change damages linked to fossil fuels. The number of cases filed against fossil fuel companies each year has nearly tripled since the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, according to a new report, titled Big Oil in Court – The latest trends in climate litigation against fossil fuel companies by Oil Change International and Zero Carbon Analytics. The analysis reveals the intensifying legal pressure on fossil fuel corporations responsible for 69% of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions, the main driver of the climate crisis.

Big Oil And Gas Infiltrate Higher Education To Slow Climate Action

September 6, 2024 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. , , , ,
A former Exxon executive sits on a university’s board of trustees. Fossil fuel representatives develop undergraduate courses. Schools lease out their land for fracking. Industry-funded studies end up influencing federal energy policy. These aren’t just isolated examples of oil and gas companies partnering with academic institutions, according to a new study published in the journal WIREs Climate Change by researchers with six universities, but an international effort by the industry spanning decades with the goal of obstructing and slowing down climate action. The authors came to that conclusion by conducting a first-ever review of dozens of existing academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel infiltration of higher education, looking primarily at institutions in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia.

Unicorn Riot Nets Resounding Win For Press Freedom Against Oil Corporation

May 11, 2024 Dan Feidt, Unicorn Riot. , , , ,
Saint Paul, MN — The Minnesota Court of Appeals issued a ruling favoring Unicorn Riot on Monday, May 6, rejecting the oil company Energy Transfer LP’s attempt to obtain newsgathering materials through a subpoena, blunting a three-year legal pressure campaign. In April 2021, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline started trying to force Unicorn Riot to give out sensitive and privileged materials developed in the process of covering the controversial fracked oil pipeline and the massive, historic organized resistance against it. (See our full-length documentary, Black Snake Killaz [2017], DAPL category, and Standing Rock and DAPL content tags for dozens of original stories.)

New Evidence Of Big Oil’s Decades-Long Campaign To Deny Climate Science

May 2, 2024 Adam M. Lowenstein, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Oil and gas companies and their top trade groups were aware for decades that carbon emissions contribute to climate change, according to a scathing new report from congressional investigators. Moreover, industry giants knew that many of the technologies they presented publicly as solutions to the climate crisis – such as algae-based biofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS) – were neither as green nor as feasible as they promised, the study reveals. The Senate Budget Committee and Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability published the report and related documents on April 30

Taxing Fossil Fuel Companies Could Be ‘Powerful Tool’ To Cut Emissions

May 1, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , , , ,
According to the new Climate Damages Tax report, introducing a fossil fuel tax on companies in the richest countries in the world could generate hundreds of billions to aid the most vulnerable nations in coping with the climate crisis. The impacts of climate change disproportionately affect poorer nations that have contributed to it the least. “Climate change is a war. A category five hurricane releases energy equivalent to 10,000 times the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Hydrogen Industry Draws $41 Million In Lobbying From Fossil Fuel Companies

December 29, 2023 Emily Gertz and Jimmy Cloutier, DeSmog. , , ,
The number of companies and organizations lobbying the federal government on issues related to hydrogen increased nearly tenfold since President Joe Biden took office — from about two dozen at the end of 2020 to more than 200 this year, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of lobbying disclosures. Fossil fuel companies, which have promoted hydrogen as a catch-all solution to climate change, rank among the top spenders and outnumber clients from every industry, including the renewable energy sector, the analysis shows. Thirty-two oil and gas producers reported lobbying on hydrogen, among other issues, and spent a combined $41.3 million on federal lobbying efforts this year, as of Sept. 30.
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