Climate Campaigners Urge Standard Bank to Ditch 'Alarming' East African Crude Oil Pipeline

Banks should "abandon the project and instead inject financing into safe, sustainable, community-centered renewable energy solutions to foster a just transition away from fossil fuels in Africa," said one advocate.

People gather outside Standard Bank's offices in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 12, 2023.
(Photo: StopEACOP/Twitter)

KENNY STANCIL
Jun 12, 2023

Hundreds of climate justice activists on Monday descended upon Standard Bank's offices in Johannesburg, South Africa, where they implored the financial institution to stop backing the proposed East African Crude Oil Pipeline and other harmful fossil fuel projects.

The protest, held during Standard Bank's annual general meeting, sought to draw shareholders' attention to the deleterious effects of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and persuade them to call on the bank to publicly withdraw its support for the development of such polluting infrastructure.

It was organized by the #StopEACOP coalition, which wants the bank not only to divest from EACOP and multiple liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in Mozambique but also to redirect that money toward renewables to increase regional access to clean energy.

"With a powerful collective of South African activists and community organizations raising their voices to demand Standard Bank's withdrawal of support for EACOP, it is long overdue for the bank to pause and genuinely listen," the coalition's coordinator, Zaki Mamdoo, said in a statement. "They cannot assume they can sponsor the destruction of other African nations without intervention from South Africans. Today, their misconception has been shattered—our actions against Standard Bank will only intensify until they fully abandon EACOP and all similar projects."



EACOP's aim is to transport heated crude oil nearly 900 miles through Uganda and Tanzania, where it would be shipped from Port Tanga through the Suez Canal to refineries in the Dutch city of Rotterdam and subsequently burned. As Common Dreams has reported, experts estimate that if completed, the project would generate 379 million tonnes of planet-heating emissions over 25 years, threaten biodiversity hotspots, and endanger the Lake Victoria basin on which more than 40 million people depend.

To get started, the project's developers—France-based TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, working alongside Ugandan and Tanzanian state-owned oil firms—are seeking a $3 billion loan from some of the largest commercial banks in the world.

Standard Bank, through its subsidiary Stanbic Uganda, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China are acting as the project's financial advisers. According to 350Africa.org, "These banks are expected to serve as lead arrangers, meaning that they will need to approach other banks to co-finance the deal and are actively raising funds to see EACOP constructed."

Inside the shareholder meeting, Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala indicated, in response to questions from Khaliel Moses of 350Africa.org, that the bank "will be providing finance directly" to EACOP. However, when asked for clarification, the bank's chair, Nonkululeko Nyembezi, responded that no decision had yet been made on financing the project. "What you are hearing perhaps is directionally how personally I am leaning," she said, confirming that the bank is still seriously considering lending to EACOP despite sustained opposition to it.

The #StopEACOP coalition said Monday that "the detrimental impacts of EACOP are already evident, even before the physical construction of the pipeline" has begun. Communities in Uganda and Tanzania "have experienced the irregular loss of land, undermining livelihoods and exacerbating land degradation," the coalition noted. "The mere presence of EACOP has caused disruption, fear, and uncertainty among local populations who rely on the land for their sustenance and cultural heritage."

"This pre-construction phase highlights the urgent need for Standard Bank to withdraw its support, as the project's continuation would only amplify these negative consequences, further jeopardizing the well-being of communities and the fragile ecosystem," #StopEACOP continued. "The bank needs to recognize the alarming implications of EACOP and take a responsible stance to protect both people and the environment."

At the shareholder meeting, meanwhile, Earthlife Africa director Makoma Lekalakala presented Standard Bank executives with a certificate of human rights violations on behalf of the communities already affected by EACOP.

"Standard Bank still doesn't get that financing EACOP poses huge risks, not just to the communities it is supposed to serve, but also to the bank itself," said Ryan Brightwell, director of communications and research at BankTrack. "This is why their co-advisers SMBC [Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation] have stepped away, and 25 other major banks have declared they won't touch the project. The bank protests outside the bank's annual meeting are getting larger yearly—they would be well advised to listen."

In addition to advising EACOP, Standard Bank has also provided $485 million in financing to Mozambique LNG in Cabo Delgado, a project led by TotalEnergies, and it has also so far refused to rule out funding Rovuma LNG, another fracked gas project in Mozambique.

"As a financier of TotalEnergies' $24 billion Mozambique LNG, Standard Bank is complicit in its devastation and fueling a war that has left thousands dead and a million displaced," said Anabela Lemos, director of environmental justice at Friends of the Earth Mozambique. "Entire communities in Cabo Delgado have been displaced and lost everything, a UNESCO Biosphere will be destroyed, and emissions just from the construction phase will irreversibly damage the climate. With the project still on pause, Standard Bank has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to stop enabling violence and pushing the country even deeper into a debt spiral by canceling its financing."

Diana Nabiruma of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance in Uganda rejected as "erroneous" Standard Bank's argument that its continued fossil fuel financing is meant "to promote economic development and address energy poverty."

"Available evidence indicates that frontline communities suffer economic setbacks due to losing their land and other economic assets, which aren't compensated adequately and fairly," said Nabiruma. "Oil-producing countries such as Nigeria also have the most number of people without access to electricity and most of the oil from Uganda and gas from Mozambique is meant for export."

In the words of Lekalakala from Earthlife Africa, "Standard Bank has to wake up to the reality that gas and oil are not and cannot be transitional fuels towards a low-carbon development."

That sentiment was echoed by 350Africa.org regional campaigner Charity Migwi, who said that "the financial institutions supporting the fossil fuel industry are fueling the climate crisis."

A recent report showed that since 2016, the year the Paris agreement took effect, the world's 60 largest private banks have provided $5.5 trillion in financing to the fossil fuel industry, flouting their pledges to put themselves and their clients on a path to "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions as the window to avert the worst effects of the climate crisis rapidly closes.

"These institutions must reconsider their responsibility to the communities within the areas in which they work, which are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, experiencing extreme, crippling weather events," Migwi continued. "Rather than expose communities to the harmful effects of projects such as EACOP, we call on Standard Bank and other banks involved in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline to abandon the project and instead inject financing into safe, sustainable, community-centered renewable energy solutions to foster a just transition away from fossil fuels in Africa."

The Climate Crisis Will Be the Mother of All Financial Crises

Our rapidly heating planet is the fundamental crisis for humanity and will have repercussions on all human systems.

This aerial photograph taken in Pakistan's Balochistan province on August 31, 2022 shows people wading in floodwaters next to a house that collapsed due to monsoon rains turbocharged by the climate crisis.
(Photo: Fida Hussain/AFP via Getty Images)

JOÃO CAMARGO
Jun 12, 2023

Common Dreams

The criminal profits of large multinational corporations in 2022 might seem to indicate a reversal of the historical trend for global profit decline of recent decades, but they are only a hiccup and a massive assault enabled by the privileges of the monopolists of global capital. The fall in profitability continues and the climate crisis is already and will continue to be the main factor in the current and future financial crises.

The inflationary spiral we are still living in was triggered by the oil companies' choice to use their monopoly over the energy system to offset their falling profits during Covid lockdowns. This comes after decades of hooking the economy on fossil fuels in an absolute alliance with the political mainstream, with the complacency and sometimes even agreement of green and left-wing parties. All agreements have been torn up by now, only barbarism remains. However, on top of this assault produced by the imposition of unparalleled high prices, other imbalances beyond the control of the capitalist elite have begun to manifest themselves.

The economic and financial models are not designed for the climate crisis.

In 2022, Pakistan was submerged by the biggest floods in its history, with a third of the country under water, with over 30 million people displaced to other places and other countries. Pakistan is one of the world's largest producers of cotton and textiles. The prices of textiles, of almost all kinds of clothing, have soared. Parts of Pakistan are still underwater. Several of the people who have been displaced will not return to where they were. The likelihood of mega-monsoons happening again in the coming years is high. The heat wave currently ravaging the Asian continent has—in the middle of moderate temperature months such as March or April— caused record highs in China, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and others. This heat wave coincides with territories with high humidity so that large-scale deaths are already occurring (directly due to the heat and indirectly to people with health problems, the very young or elderly).

The abundance of cotton and textile production on a global level has been squeezed, prices have increased and it will not necessarily be possible to return to previous levels without further disruption.

Maize, wheat, and rice crops were affected by drought in the United States, Europe, and China. In California, the smallest rice area since the 1950s was planted in 2022 and the harvest will be about half that of a "normal" year. In the United States the winter wheat harvest has fallen by 25%. The disruption of the flow of grain in the Black Sea because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine added on top of this drastic decrease in supply even more concentration, increased global prices of cereals, bread, pasta. Some of this production could recover by 2023 if we do not experience a scorching summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but so far the historic drought on the Eurasian continent and in North America continues.

Agriculture in the mega-artificialized plastic prairie of southern Spain suffers drastic production declines and drives up the price of vegetables and legumes. The Alqueva Dam in Portugal and the absurd amount of criminal crops currently grown in the Alentejo region are now at the limits of viability. Although we have experienced the worst drought in Europe since the 16th century and the worst drought in the history of China in 2022, this was a year in which the climate phenomenon La Niña contributed to a global reduction in temperature. In 2023 this will not happen, and probably during the year El Niño will form in the Pacific Ocean, leading to a global increase in temperature.

We already live on another planet, not the one where all the exploitative relations, the institutions, and the banking and financial system that sustained the growth of capitalism were created.

To fight rising inflation, central banks and battalions of economists trained in the schools of suicidal capitalism chose to do what they learned: raise interest rates, to take money out of the economy, and make it squeeze. Everyone who had a loan saw the value of their loan increase, while the prices of all goods increased too. Many companies that had loans—everyone, therefore—also saw their operating costs increase, which will increase wage compression, eventually leading to layoffs and, in some cases, bankruptcy. Silicon Valley Bank went bankrupt as a result of rising interest rates and because it was a bank that specialized in debt, with a large amount invested in long-term US government treasury bonds, considered probably the safest investment in the world economy.

What happened to Silicon Valley Bank and the others will happen again and again in the future. Contagion to other banks will be more and more frequent and, with higher prices, will happen by other means as well. Household debt is increasing to combat high prices. As even the rare wage increases that do occur are below inflation, the level of debt is rising just to maintain similar living standards as before. As the likelihood of the price of fossil fuels controlled by private multinationals dropping significantly is so slim and as climate disasters such as droughts, floods and forest fires are taking away the general capacity to produce goods and services on a global scale, the climate crisis will continue to express itself directly as a cost of living crisis. This means that growing debts will, in increasing amounts, go unpaid. This means more banks going bust. But maybe it's possible to cover all this with insurance, no?

No.

Global insurance premiums are on the rise because risk is moving from being risk to certainty. The banking industry's close relationship with the insurance sector ensures that every climate catastrophe is also a financial crisis. And considering that risk is becoming or approaching a certainty in many cases, more and more insurers are refusing to insure investments, industrial projects, construction in dangerous zones, crops in flood or drought risk zones, and even general insurance on buildings, transport and other areas. They refuse because their business is to make a profit and because the previous distribution of risk is no longer the case and is only confirmed. All are much more dangerous and the risk of major climate catastrophes is widespread. Even when insurers don't refuse to do the insurance, they increase premiums and therefore both people and businesses are paying more to have insurance. If you consider an area like flood-prone Pakistan or a state like California, one of the most important agricultural areas in the United States whose annual fires are now permanently devastating vast areas and even cities, which insurance companies will ever be able to insure all the damage caused?

None.

So who will pay for these disasters? Can you imagine? Well, the people of that country through the State, the ultimate guarantor. This will happen with countries or territories where the state is rich, like California. In cases like Pakistan, the answer is that nobody will pay for these disasters in their entirety. States, to pay for these fossil industry-produced disasters, will have to raise taxes or divert revenues from activities like Education or Health for recovery. In capitalism, we can take for granted that the funding of the repressive apparatus, the police and armies, will not be touched, in particular because social discontent has no way not to increase.

The rising cost of living is already a consequence of the climate crisis, high prices are and will continue to be imposed on people because overall supply is falling. All the weaknesses that already existed before—weak health systems, energy monopolies, unavailable, poorly built housing stock, touristification of cities, lack of quality public transport, and precarious mass employment—will be exacerbated. Health systems are on the verge of collapse, people can't pay rents, can't commute to work without exorbitant costs, and stop paying bills and debts. And banks threaten, evict, sue, but there is no money to save them. The result? A financial crisis. Not paying the people directly, the states pay, again the last guarantor of the financial system, reducing public services and social capacity, increasing public debts, and being pressured to sell public assets.

And they will always tell us that it is necessary to save the banks, because otherwise the whole economy collapses. They will guarantee the collapse of society to save the banks, once again. But this time it is not the same as previous financial crises.

The economic and financial models are not designed for the climate crisis. Just look at the Nobel prize winner in economics, Eric Nordhaus, and his models and the proposition that considering the cost-benefit, we could allow a global temperature increase of up to 4°C. Right now we have a global temperature increase of 1.1 to 1.3°C and there are already global scale resource and product shortages. One more degree and not only will there not be remotely the amount of products needed to sustain billions of people, there will be no international trade as anything even remotely stable. Economists and their models don't realize what is or what will happen, they have generally been taught not to realize it.

The preponderance of the financial world in our societies means that this is also where we will see the world burn, economically and politically.

Exactly how the financial crises of the climate crisis will unfold is as diverse and multiple as the capitalist economy: bankruptcies because of high prices or interest rates, real estate crises, monetary crises when a country goes under water, debt crises when national production and tax revenues fall or banks, companies or insurance companies have to be saved, stranded assets when a government decides to bet on a failed and absurd project—we cannot help but point here to the stupidity of the project of a new Airport in Lisbon, of the cascade of dams to make an "Alqueva of the Tagus," of the thousands of imbecile projects that abound in the national and international press every day.

With a global temperature increase of 1.1ºC to 1.2ºC we are already in a general financial crisis of general lack of income from capitalism, despite the neo-liberal parroting that we live in the best of all worlds. Quality of life is in decline across the world because of the climate crisis and the system we live in, which refuses to solve it. The profitable investments of the last seven decades no longer exist. That is why we see so much excitement and hype with artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, and other intangible assets. They are the search for yield that today has to be based primarily on divestment and on products whose verifiability is low. The time when investing in cement, cars, factories, roads, and construction had guarantees of profit (even if brokered and favoured by the state, based on the idea of guaranteed future growth and profitability) is over. What is left is chaos and alienation.

On the other hand, alienation is widespread among the population and so it becomes very difficult to translate that the financial crises in which capitalism has always lived now also have an umbilical link to the climate crisis. It is on the basis of this understanding that some of the anti-systemic alliances essential to an ecosocialist political breakthrough can and must be made.

The climate crisis will be the mother of all financial crises, because it is the fundamental crisis of the human species and will have repercussions on all human systems. The preponderance of the financial world in our societies means that this is also where we will see the world burn, economically and politically.

The choice to design political programs that abandon the need for the urgent closure of fossil industry or that base the solution to the crisis on wage increases that do not entail any fundamental redistribution of power are proposals almost as alienated as the proposals of the capitalist elite.

We must not only know the current crises but use them at all times to propose the political programs of rupture necessary to stop the climate crisis and capitalism. This bridge is expressed in proposals like the Last Winter of Gas, which promotes a multi-tactic articulation and an alliance between different political groups in the simultaneous fight against the social, economic, and climate crisis. The break with the capitalist system and the road to climate chaos will have to be an articulated, international, and incisive process. The successive financial crises cannot be allowed to pass by as key moments for action.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


JOÃO CAMARGO is a climate activist in grassroots movement Climaximo in Portugal and in the Climate Jobs campaign. He's an environmental engineer and climate change researcher at the University of Lisbon and the author of two books: Climate Change Combat Manual (in Portugal and Spain) and Portugal in Flames - How to rescue the forests.
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100+ Scientists to Newsom: Stop Oil and Gas Drilling in California—Especially Near Homes

"California cannot be a climate, health, and environmental justice leader while giving permits to the oil industry to dig, burn, and dump toxic pollution in our communities, air, and water."

An oil well pumps in a neighborhood near Shell's Alamitos No. 1 discovery well on Signal Hill in Long Beach.
(Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)


BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 12, 2023

More than 100 scientists on Monday urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom to stop approving new permits for fossil fuel drilling in the nation's most populous state—especially in residential neighborhoods.

In a letter, the scientists thank Newsom, a Democrat, for "taking key steps toward protecting California's frontline communities and our climate from fossil fuel pollution, including supporting legislation to establish a health and safety buffer zone between communities and oil and gas extraction and taking steps to end Big Oil's price gouging of working families at the pump."

"However, in this time of emergency, we are shocked at the sharp increase in oil and gas permitting by CalGEM, which has approved more than 1,000 permits this year for oil and gas operators to continue drilling," the scientists continued, referring to the state's energy management agency. "Even more shocking is the fact that almost two-thirds of those permits are for projects within the landmark 3,200-foot health and safety buffer you and your administration fought hard to pass last fall."

 

The letter asserts that "California's oil industry has created an interlinked public health, environmental justice, and climate crisis in our state," and that "public health studies have established that living near oil and gas wells increases the risks of cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases, preterm births, low birth weights, and other serious harms."

The scientists say these harms threaten the health of the more than 7 million Californians who live within a mile of fossil fuel wells, which—due to a long history of environmental racism—are concentrated in or near communities of color.

Earlier this month, for example, inspectors found that 27 sites—or 40% of all those examined—in the Lamont-Arvin area of southeastern Kern County were leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas with 80 times the planet-warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere. Lamont and Arvin are both over 90% Latino.



Some California municipalities—most notably Los Angeles—have banned fossil fuel drilling within their geographical limits, and in April 2021 Newsom announced California would stop issuing new fracking permits by 2024 and completely phase out oil and gas production by 2045.

"California cannot be a climate, health, and environmental justice leader while giving permits to the oil industry to dig, burn, and dump toxic pollution in our communities, air, and water," the scientists stressed. "We implore you to take the science-and-justice-based actions needed now to phase out the fossil fuels driving the escalating climate, health, and justice crises in our state, and oversee an equitable, clean, renewable energy buildout that protects all Californians."

Specifically, the letter's signers call on Newsom to "restart the health and safety rulemaking to permanently establish a... health and safety protection zone that prohibits all oil and gas operations within a minimum 3,200 feet of homes, schools, hospitals, and other sensitive sites," and "stop issuing permits for oil and gas extraction and fossil fuel infrastructure."

Aradhna Tripati, a professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles who signed the new letter, said in a statement that "Gov. Newsom has the power to end the neighborhood oil drilling that is poisoning communities of color first and worst."

"Gov. Newsom has the power to end the neighborhood oil drilling that is poisoning communities of color first and worst."

"We need him to act now to stop drilling near where people live, work, and play to protect Californians on the frontlines of deadly fossil fuel pollution," Tripati added.

Letter signatory Daniel Kammen, the Lau distinguished professor of sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, said that "there's no time for complacency when oil and gas are fueling California's climate chaos."

"Gov. Newsom should show the world what climate leadership looks like by halting new oil and gas approvals and ramping up rooftop solar and local storage that will protect communities and the climate," Kammen added.

Signer Shaye Wolf, the Center for Biological Diversity's climate science director, said that "scientists are imploring Gov. Newsom to build on his climate action and protect Californians from harmful oil and gas drilling and fossil-fueled climate chaos."

"We have all the evidence we need to end the dirty fossil fuel era in California," Wolf argued. "Now's the time for urgent action."

As Canada Burns, Docs Reveal Oil Giant Weighed In on Government Carbon Plan

"Carbon capture and storage is a scam, and as these documents show, the call is coming from inside the house," said one campaigner.


The Suncor Edmonton Refinery in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada

 is shown on September 12, 2021.
(Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 08, 2023

As wildfires continued to cause air pollution problems across eastern North America on Thursday, The Narwhalrevealed it obtained documents showing that fossil fuel giant Suncor "provided input on the first draft" of the Canadian government's forthcoming Carbon Management Strategy and a company executive sat on an "obscure" advisory panel.

Highlighting the "important reporting" from The Narwhal's Carl Meyer, Torrance Coste—national campaign director at the Wilderness Committee, a Canadian nonprofit—tweeted that "carbon capture and storage is a scam, and as these documents show, the call is coming from inside the house."

Meyer, an investigative reporter at the nonprofit Canadian media outlet, shared details from a February 2022 briefing note prepared for Natural Resources Canada Deputy Minister John Hannaford—whom Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has just named as clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, a promotion set to take effect later this month.

The briefing note was developed for a meeting with Jacquie Moore—then Suncor's vice president of external relations and now its top lawyer—and lobbyist Daniel Goodwin that "served as Hannaford's introduction to some Suncor 'key initiatives,' including the company's membership in the 'Oilsands Pathways to Net Zero alliance,' the former name of the Pathways Alliance, which was then a fledgling organization in the oilpatch," Meyer reported.

"The alliance wants to soak up at least $10 billion in public funding to build a mammoth, unprecedented system that would capture carbon from oilsands operations in Alberta and pipe it to an underground reservoir in the province's east," the journalist noted.

While serving as Suncor's vice president of regional development, Chris Grant was chosen to be on a "thought leaders' senior reference group" for the government plan—previously known as the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Strategy—according to the briefing note. Grant has since retired from the Calgary-based energy company.

Although Grant, Suncor, and the Pathways Alliance did not respond to requests for comment, Natural Resources Canada spokesperson Michael MacDonald told The Narwhal that "Suncor's input had no impact whatsoever on the timelines for the development of the strategy," the company was "one of nearly 1,500 organizations and individuals" who weighed in, and "input was solicited from all interested Canadians" online from July 2021 to November 2022.

MacDonald also said that members of the 13-person advisory board, including Grant, "were asked to bring their expertise and experiences to the table as individuals, not as representatives of their respective organizations."

The board included a University of Alberta professor, a clean energy consultant, a Shell Canada manager, the NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize executive director, CEOs of CarbonCure and Svante, president of Wolf Carbon, and vice presidents at BMO's Impact Investment Fund, Carbon Engineering, Cement Association of Canada, International CCS Knowledge Center, and Scotiabank.

"As the entire country burns, one has to wonder: should fossil fuel companies be weighing in on our national climate change policy?"

Meyer reported that the panel—convened by Drew Leyburne, Natural Resources Canada's assistant deputy minister for energy efficiency and technology—met three times between April and July 2021, then corresponded over email the following year. One member said they served as "a sounding board," providing "casual, nonbinding, nonconsensus advice."

The government spokesperson did not say when the plan will be released but said that "it was determined that a more holistic view of carbon management solutions was necessary in this space," given that CCUS "technology is not, on its own, a silver bullet to combat climate change," but it is "one component of an overarching strategy" that will also include nature-based solutions such as tree-planting and wetland restoration along with other technologies like direct air capture.

Some global campaigners and experts have long argued that CCUS is "a false solution" that has become "a dangerous distraction driven by the same big polluters who created the climate emergency," as Common Dreams has reported. Critics have also warned that industries promote "nature-based solutions" so they can "keep burning fossil fuels, mine more of the planet, and increase industrial meat and dairy production."



The reporting on the Canadian government's evolving carbon plan came as smoke from Canadian wildfires—intensified by global heating largely driven by fossil fuels—disrupted travel and outdoor activities across the U.S. East Coast as officials warned millions of people to stay indoors due to poor air quality.

Fatima Syed, Meyer's colleague at The Narwhal, tweeted that "this story is bonkers when you consider wildfires."

Emma McIntosh, another reporter at the outlet, similarly said that his "scoop feels like a bad joke when you read it under a layer of wildfire smoke: Suncor, a massive oil company, helped the federal government write its climate change strategy. Which is now a year late."

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS 

Fossil Fuel Companies' Net-Zero Plans Are 'Largely Meaningless,' Report Finds

Existing pledges tend to ignore emissions caused by the distribution and consumption of petroleum products, and not a single fossil fuel company has committed to ending oil and gas production by 2050.


Flames grow near oil wells on the eastern flank of the 16,000-plus-acre Guiberson fire, burning out of control for a second day on September 23, 2009 near Moorpark in Ventura County, California.
(Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

KENNY STANCIL
Jun 12, 2023

A growing share of fossil fuel corporations have pledged to reach "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, but a new report reveals that the vast majority of them are doing "nothing concrete" to achieve such goals.

Climate justice advocates have long denounced the concept of "net-zero" because, they say, allowing planet-heating pollution to be "canceled out" via questionable carbon offset programs or risky carbon removal technologies is an accounting gimmick that doesn't guarantee the deep emissions reductions needed to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Net Zero Stocktake 2023, unveiled Monday at the United Nations Bonn Climate Change Conference, shows that even if one accepts the premise that entities can negate, rather than eliminate, their pollution, they are still failing to deliver on the framework's own terms.

Based on publicly available data compiled by the collaborative research outfit Net Zero Tracker, the third comprehensive annual analysis of "net-zero target intent and integrity" finds that 75 of the world's largest 114 fossil fuel companies have now made net-zero by 2050 commitments, up from 51 a year ago.

However, most of those commitments don't fully cover or lack transparency on the coverage of "scope 3" emissions, rendering them "largely meaningless," the report says. In contrast to "scope 1" and "scope 2" emissions—resulting from production and the operation of company-owned property, respectively—scope 3 emissions stem from the distribution and consumption of products, making them by far the most significant for fossil fuel companies.

To make matters worse, not a single fossil fuel company has committed to phasing out oil and gas production by 2050 nor have any committed to ending exploration for new oil and gas fields or halting the extraction of existing reserves, notes the report. Only two have vowed to stop building or enlarging coal mines and another two have rejected new coal-fired power stations. Just four have promised to end coal-fired power generation by 2030 in rich countries and by 2040 in all nations.

The International Energy Agency made clear in 2021 that any new investment in coal, oil, and gas is inconsistent with its net-zero by 2050 roadmap. Since then, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeated its warning that expanding fossil fuel supply is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned the status quo as a civilizational "death sentence" and called the aforementioned actions currently being ignored by all but a few dirty energy firms a "survival guide for humanity."

Despite all of those alarm bells, oil and gas corporations—long aware of their contributions to the climate emergency, swimming in record profits, and empowered by policymakers who have continued to lavish the industry with trillions of dollars in subsidies each year while failing to agree to a global fossil fuel phaseout—are still planning to ramp up drilling in the coming years.

During last year's COP27 summit, a group of U.N. experts outlined the parameters of a high-integrity net-zero strategy for companies and sub-national governments. In addition, the U.N. earlier this month launched the Global Climate Action Recognition and Accountability Framework for non-state entities.

As the latest Net Zero Stocktake, citing the U.N.'s guidance, points out:
Achieving credible net-zero requires the phasing down and out of fossil fuel extraction and use, with any residual emissions being removed by like-for-like carbon dioxide removal later in the century. For the 77 fossil fuel companies with net zero targets, as well as those without them, they should reflect on the U.N. Expert Group's fifth recommendation that a fossil-fuelled future is incompatible with what 195 nations agreed to in 2015 when they signed the Paris agreement. The U.N. expert group also clarified that the focus should not just be on transitioning away from fossil fuels by mid-century, but "must be matched by a fully funded transition toward renewable energy."

"We haven't yet seen a huge move from fossil fuel companies or other companies on meeting those [guidelines], so there's still a lot of work to do to come up to that level," report co-author Thomas Hale, a professor at the University of Oxford, toldReuters.

Fossil fuel corporations aren't the only entities examined by Net Zero Tracker.

Researchers are keeping tabs on all countries, all states and regions in the 25 highest-emitting nations, all cities with more than 500,000 residents, and the largest 2,000 publicly listed companies worldwide, leading to a database with over 4,000 entries. Of those, at least 1,475 have set a net-zero target, up from 769 in December 2020. However, as with oil and gas firms, "there are very limited signs of improvement in the robustness of sub-national and corporate net-zero targets and strategies" overall, the report notes.

Progressive critics might say the analysis provides further evidence that despite the U.N.'s best efforts to establish high standards, corporate net-zero pledges still amount to little more than a greenwashing tactic—one that threatens to delay the transformative action needed to save millions of lives this century.

US warns against Israeli settlement expansion after reports of new West Bank plans

BY LAURA KELLY 

- 06/12/23 THE HILL

Greg Nash
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addresses reporters during the daily briefing at the White House on Monday, June 5, 2023.

The Biden administration is reiterating opposition to Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank that it says undermines efforts to achieve a two-state solution with the Palestinians, following reports that Jerusalem is preparing to announce thousands more housing units in the politically-fraught territory.

Axios reported on Monday that Israel has informed the United States of building plans that include 4,000 housing units in several existing West Bank settlements, suggesting that construction plans related to an area known as E1 near Jerusalem would likely be included in such an announcement.

White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby on Monday would not confirm if the Israeli government has told Biden officials about plans to announce settlement expansion, but said U.S. policy is consistent in opposing any unilateral decisions to advance Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“We have long made clear our concerns about additional settlements in the West Bank, that we don’t want to see actions taken that are going to make a two-state solution that much more difficult to achieve,” Kirby said during the White House press briefing.

“We don’t want to see steps taken that only increase the tensions and we’ve been very clear about that. Nothing’s changed about our policy.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to balance a coalition of hard-right members that are key to maintaining his grip on power but who’s political demands — to advance plans to annex the West Bank, permit settlement construction and institute a judicial overhaul — have triggered pushback from the Biden administration.Trump-Milley feud played key role in classified documents caseHouse lawmakers want 5.2 percent pay raise for troops

Among the demands from Netanyahu’s coalition members is to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank in areas that, for decades, were off limits as part of attempts to advance a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority.

Last month, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller issued a statement criticizing the Israeli government’s moves to legitimize the outpost of Homesh in the West Bank that was earlier determined to be built on private, Palestinian land and that went against a policy that had lasted more than 20 years.

'Blatantly Violating International Law': Israel Plans West Bank Settlement Expansion

One Israel-based group asserted the government's new annexation moves "entrench Jewish supremacy and apartheid in the West Bank."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, seen here during an October 6, 2022 press conference, said on Monday June 12, 2023 that "big news for the settlements" would be announced "imminently."
(Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 12, 2023

Human rights defenders on Monday blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right apartheid government after it reportedly informed the Biden administration of plans to build thousands of new Jewish-only settler homes in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine.

Three Israeli and U.S. officials toldAxios that Israel will announce later this month its intention to build at least 4,000 homes in existing West Bank settler colonies. Over the weekend, Israeli and international media reported that Netanyahu's government would postpone plans for what's known as the E1 project due to U.S. pressure.

For two decades Israeli and international human rights experts have called the settlements—which are illegal under Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention and the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Rome Statute—part of Israel's apartheid regime. The seizure of Palestinian land in the occupied territories is also a war crime under the Rome Statute.

"The American government can and should materially pressure Israel to stop impeding on Palestinian human rights."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who opined in 2021 that all—not just most—Arabs should have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine at Israel's birth, said during a Monday press conference that "we will have big news for the settlements in the West Bank imminently."

The Biden administration has largely turned a blind eye to Israeli settlement construction and expansion but says it is strongly opposed to E1 because it would reduce the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem and further diminish faint hopes of any so-called two-state solution.

"Since the new Israeli government was inaugurated in December 2022, it has taken a series of alarming steps to accelerate its annexation of the West Bank, aiming to fulfill its commitments to increase Jewish settlements and ultimately extend Israeli sovereignty across the West Bank," tweeted Adalah, an Israel-based advocacy group for Arab minority rights.

Adalah asserted that Israel's new annexation moves "entrench Jewish supremacy and apartheid in the West Bank" by steps including:The institutional transfer of authority from military to civilian government offices in order to dismantle the authority of the military's administration, assert Israeli state sovereignty, and promote the settlements;
The further "regularization" and expansion of illegal settlements; and
The direct application of Israeli domestic law to the occupied West Bank.
"These are part of an explicit plan by Israel to annex swaths of the West Bank and institute full Israeli sovereignty over them," Adalah asserted. "They violate international law, including the Rome Statute, constituting crimes against humanity (apartheid), war crimes, and a crime of aggression."

In the United States, the progressive political group Justice Democrats called on Congress to pass H.R. 3103, the Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act. The measure—which was introduced last month by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.)—would ensure that no U.S. tax dollars are used by the Israeli military to imprison Palestinian children, force Palestinians out of their homes or demolish their property, or further expand settlements and steal Palestinian land.

The U.S. gives Israel around $3.8 billion in mostly unconditional military aid each year.

Ben-Gvir Seeks Power to Impose Administrative Detention

Af.M | DOP - 12 June, 2023

Itamar Ben-Gvir introduced a bill in parliament allowing him to issue administrative detention orders against Palestinians, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

According to Channel 14, the bill is set to be filed by MK Zvika Fogel from Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party and chairman of the Knesset’s National Security Committee.

Introducing the bill through the committee will enable Ben-Gvir’s party to skip preliminary steps that would have allowed the government’s legal advisers, particularly Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, to raise objections, Channel 14 added.

Observers say that far-right extremist Ben-Gvir’s aim is to strengthen his grip over the Arab community in Israel on the pretext of fighting crime.

Israel’s illegal policy of administrative detention is a pre-emptive measure that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for lengthy periods of time based on disclosed allegations that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

Israeli occupation is currently holding more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees without charge or trial, the highest number since 2003, according to the Israeli human rights group HaMoked.

Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist, is serving as the Netanyahu government’s national security minister. He was convicted in 2007 of supporting a terror organization and inciting racism.

UN Report Accuses Israel of 'Silencing of Civil Society' to Repress Palestinians

"We were particularly alarmed by the situation of Palestinian human rights defenders," reads the report, "who are routinely subject to a range of punitive measures as part of the occupation regime."

Palestinians take part in a protest against the Israeli decision to declare six Palestinian human rights groups as "terror organisations", in Gaza City on November 10, 2021.
(Photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 09, 2023

Civil society groups in Israel and Palestine face serious human rights violations by Israeli authorities seeking to perpetuate an illegal occupation and apartheid regime, according to a report published Thursday by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The report—authored by the Independent International Commission Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory—examines "attacks, restrictions, and harassment of civil society actors by all duty bearers," including the Israeli government and occupation forces, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Hamas in Gaza.

"We concluded that all duty bearers are engaged in limiting the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful association," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement. "We were particularly alarmed by the situation of Palestinian human rights defenders, who are routinely subject to a range of punitive measures as part of the occupation regime."

 

The commission found that "the Israeli authorities' silencing of civil society voices that challenge government policies and narrative is intrinsically linked to the goal of ensuring and enshrining the permanent occupation at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people."

"This includes criminalizing Palestinian civil society organizations and their members by labeling them as 'terrorists,' pressuring and threatening institutions that give a platform for civil society discourse, actively lobbying donors, and implementing measures intended to cut sources of funding to civil society," the report states.

According to the publication:
The Israeli authorities' use of anti-terror legislation to categorize civil society organizations as terrorist organizations aims to delegitimize and isolate them and undermine their activity, and to harm their international funding and support. The commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the designations by Israeli authorities of six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations and a seventh Palestinian NGO as unlawful were unjustified, undertaken to silence civil society voices, and violate human rights, including freedom of association, freedom of expression and opinion, and the rights to peaceful assembly, to privacy, and to fair trial.

Israeli officials claim the six humanitarian groups—Addameer, AlHaq, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International—Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees—have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular political movement with an armed wing that has carried out resistance attacks against Israel. The groups deny the accusation, and a probe by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency found no evidence supporting Israel's claim.

The report further states that "Israeli authorities are increasingly using surveillance to monitor the activities of human rights defenders, including through spyware planted on mobile phones," including by planting Pegasus spyware manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group on the phones of Palestinian human rights workers and Israeli activists participating in 2020 protests against the last Netanyahu government.

A section of the report on the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu notes:
In late 2022, a new government in Israel was sworn in, with a stated mission of weakening the judiciary and increasing government control of the media and freedom of expression, which would have a significant impact on civil society in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In February 2023, the government started enacting new legislation to weaken judicial independence amid large-scale countrywide demonstrations. The proposed changes would dismantle fundamental features of the separation of powers and of the checks and balances essential in democratic political systems. Legal experts have warned that they risk weakening human rights protections, especially for the most vulnerable and disfavored communities, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, asylum-seekers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons.

The report states that Israeli authorities are subjecting both Israeli and Palestinian journalists to monitoring and harassment, with Palestinians being "particularly targeted" for intimidation, "attacks, arrests, detention, and accusations of incitement to violence, seemingly as part of an effort to deter them from continuing their work."

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Israeli forces have killed 20 journalists this century, with none of the killers ever facing prosecution. These include at least one U.S. citizen, Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while covering a May 2022 raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Al Jazeera producer Ali Samodi was shot in the back but survived. An independent international probe subsequently concluded that Abu Akleh's "extrajudicial killing" was "deliberate."

On Wednesday, 22-year-old Palestinian photojournalist Momen Samreen, who was covering Israeli forces' demolition of a suspected Palestinian militant's family home—an illegal act of collective punishment—was shot in the head with a "less-lethal" projectile and was hospitalized in serious condition.

The Israeli government—which maintains that the commission of inquiry "has no legitimacy"—rejected the report's findings. Israel's U.N. mission in Switzerland said that "Israel has a robust and independent civil society which is composed of thousands of NGOs, human rights defenders, [and] national and international media outlets, that can operate freely."

The report also states that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are targeting human rights defenders "with the aim of silencing dissenting opinions," and that activists, journalists, and others have been harassed, intimidated, and in some cases arbitrarily arrested and jailed.

"The commission has received information on the use of torture and ill-treatment to punish and intimidate critics and opponents by internal security officials in Gaza and intelligence services, preventive security officials, and law enforcement officials in the West Bank," the report says. "The frequency and severity, and the absence of accountability, suggest that such cases are widespread."

Think Tanks Say Nuclear Arsenals Expanded, Modernized Last Year

June 12, 2023
By RFE/RL

A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired as part of Russia's nuclear drills from a launch site in Plesetsk, northwestern Russia, on October 26, 2022.

Nuclear-armed states have continued to expand and modernize their atomic arsenals amid a deterioration of the world's geopolitical situation, investing huge sums of money diverted from other development goals, an influential think tank said in a report published on June 12.

While the total number of the nuclear warheads dipped year-on-year from 12,710 to 12,512, the number of nuclear weapons ready for use at the start of this year -- 9,576, accounting for about two-thirds of the total --grew last year by 86, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said.

The report said that several of the nine nuclear-armed states -- the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel -- deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapon systems last year.

As a matter of official policy, Israel has declined to comment on whether or not it possesses nuclear weapons.

Separately, a report also published on June 12 by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said the nine nuclear-armed states spent a total of $82.9 billion on nuclear weapons last year, with the United States alone accounting for more than half of the amount ($43.7 billion). Russia and China were the second- and third-ranked nuclear spenders with $11.7 billion and $9.6 billion in expenditures, respectively.

Russia and the United States together account for more than 90 percent of all the world's nuclear weapons, SIPRI said, adding that transparency about both countries' nuclear weapons declined since the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

China has also substantially increased the number of nuclear warheads that it possesses -- from 350 to 410 year-on-year, SIPRI said.

After many years of a slow decline in the number of nuclear weapons, SIPRI said the trend is reversing.

"The big picture is we've had over 30 years of the number of nuclear warheads coming down, and we see that process coming to an end now," SIPRI Director Dan Smith told French news agency AFP. 

With reporting by AFP

Nations Wasted $157,000 Per Minute on Nuclear Weapons in 2022: ICAN

The U.S. spent $43.7 billion on nuclear weapons last year—more than every other nuclear-armed nation combined, according to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group.

An anti-nuclear protester holds a placard at a rally in Sydney, Australia on February 5, 2018.
(Photo: Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 12, 2023

A new report published Monday by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons shows that the world's nine nuclear-armed countries spent more than $157,000 per minute on their atomic weaponry last year, enriching private contractors at the risk of imperiling humankind.

Combined, nuclear-armed nations spent $82.9 billion on their arsenals last year, according to ICAN. The United States was the biggest spender, dumping $43.7 billion into its already massive arsenal in 2022—more than all of the other nuclear-armed countries combined.

"The U.S. Congress allocated $16 billion for the [National Nuclear Security Administration] in 2022 to spend on weapons activities," ICAN's report notes. "In 2022, the Department of Defense requested $27.7 billion for 'nuclear modernization,' including the 'Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, B-21 Bomber, Columbia class submarine, and Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications.'"

Overall, the report shows global spending on nuclear weapons increased for the third consecutive year in 2022.

ICAN describes such spending as immensely wasteful and dangerous to global safety, rejecting commonplace claims that investments in nuclear weapons—particularly as a tool of deterrence—are essential to security.

"Through an ever-changing and challenging security environment, from security threats of climate change to the Covid-19 pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nuclear weapons spending has steadily increased, with no resulting measurable improvement on the security environment," the report states. "If anything, the situation is getting worse."

"Luck, not reason or strategy, has kept nuclear weapons from being used in warfare for the past 78 years. But we can't count on our luck to hold in perpetuity."

ICAN argues that consistently growing nuclear weapons spending is an outcome of a vicious cycle whereby tax dollars finance the construction of nuclear weapons by private companies, which proceed to fund think tanks and hire lobbyists to make the case that nuclear weapons are essential to national security—leading governments to continue pouring money "down their nuclear weapons drains."

Last year, according to ICAN's findings, nearly $16 billion in new nuclear weapons contracts were awarded to private corporations.

The companies that received the contracts—such as Bechtel, Boeing, and General Dynamics—"turned around and invested in lobbying governments, spending $113 million on those efforts in the U.S. and France," ICAN notes.

"Together," the report continues, "nuclear weapon-producing companies, nuclear-armed governments, and those in nuclear alliances spent $21-36 million funding the ten of the most prominent think tanks researching and writing about nuclear weapons in nuclear-armed states."

The think tanks highlighted in ICAN's report include the Atlantic Council—which received funding from Bechtel, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and other major contractors in 2021—and the Brookings Institution, which "received between $600,000 and $1,199,997 from three companies that produce nuclear weapons: Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman."

ICAN published its report on the same day that a new analysis by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed that the number of operational warheads in nuclear-armed nations' arsenals grew last year amid soaring tensions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

According to ICAN, "Russia's invasion of Ukraine and overt threats to use nuclear weapons have induced fear across the planet, but have also spurred a resilience and re-thinking of outdated concepts like nuclear deterrence," which suggests the threat of nuclear retaliation is sufficient to deter nuclear-armed countries from using the civilization-threatening weaponry.

ICAN has argued that the idea of nuclear deterrence "makes nuclear use more likely because the threat of use of nuclear weapons must be credible, and so the nuclear-armed states are always poised to launch nuclear weapons."

"Luck, not reason or strategy, has kept nuclear weapons from being used in warfare for the past 78 years. But we can't count on our luck to hold in perpetuity," the group's new report states. "For the first time in decades, the general public was confronted with a very real threat of nuclear war in 2022. The threat that nuclear weapons pose, as long as they exist, became tangible, with iodine tablets selling out across Europe and an increase in demand for nuclear bunkers."

ICAN concludes its report by imploring all nations to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a legally binding international agreement that none of the nine nuclear-armed countries have signed. The United States and Russia, which together possess 90% of the world's nuclear warheads, have both opposed U.N. resolutions welcoming the TPNW and urging countries to swiftly ratify it.

To date, more than 90 countries have signed the treaty and nearly 70 have ratified it.


"The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the multilateral response to the irresponsible behavior of all nuclear-armed states," ICAN's report says. "It is the normative barricade against threats to use nuclear weapons. All countries should join this landmark international instrument to prohibit the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons and prevent their eventual use by ensuring their elimination."

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