Exxon hit with $725.5 million verdict over mechanic's leukemia diagnosis

By Clark Mindock

May 10, 2024


May 10 (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania jury ordered ExxonMobil(XOM.N), opens new tab to pay $725.5 million to a former mechanic who claimed toxic chemicals in the company’s gasoline and solvents caused his cancer, according to attorneys for the plaintiff.

The 10-2 verdict came on Thursday, attorneys said, after a trial in a state court in Philadelphia, where former mechanic Paul Gill alleged he was exposed to benzene in ExxonMobil products while working at a gas station between 1975 and 1980.

Following the trial that lasted just over a week, the jury found Exxon liable for negligently failing to warn about the health risks of benzene, which the U.S. Environmental Protect Agency (EPA) has classified as a known carcinogen. The entire verdict was in compensatory damages, according to Gill's attorneys.

An Exxon spokesperson called the verdict “irrational” and said the company would ask the court to reverse it, and that it planned to “exhaust all available appeals.”

The 67-year-old former mechanic said in his 2020 lawsuit that he used petroleum products to clean car parts with his bare hands, which exposed him to benzene through direct skin contact and inhalation.

He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, in 2019.
"This verdict is important because it’s a finding that their gasoline causes cancer," said Patrick Wigle, an attorney for Gill, in a statement. "ExxonMobil has known for decades that benzene causes cancer, yet they resisted warning the public and taking basic precautions to warn the public and limit exposure."

And that's for comparison.

Benzene is widely used in the United States in motor fuels, as a solvent for resins and plastics, and for other industrial purposes.

The EPA, which limits the amount of benzene that is acceptable in fuels, says it also can be found in emissions from burning coal and oil, from car exhaust and from evaporation at gas stations, among other things.

Green concrete recycling twice the coal ash is built to last

New modelling reveals that low-carbon concrete developed at RMIT University can recycle double the amount of coal ash compared to current standards, halve the amount of cement required and perform exceptionally well over time.

RMIT UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

THE RMIT TEAM: (L-R)) DR YUGUO YU, PROFESSOR SUJEEVA SETUNGE, DR DILAN ROBERT, DR CHAMILA GUNASEKARA, DR DAVID LAW. 

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CREDIT: MICHAEL QUIN, RMIT UNIVERSITY.

New modelling reveals that low-carbon concrete developed at RMIT University can recycle double the amount of coal ash compared to current standards, halve the amount of cement required and perform exceptionally well over time.

More than 1.2 billion tonnes of coal ash were produced by coal-fired power plants in 2022. In Australia, it accounts for nearly a fifth of all waste and will remain abundant for decades to come, even as we shift to renewables.

Meanwhile, cement production makes up 8% of global carbon emissions and demand for concrete – which uses cement as a key ingredient – is growing rapidly.

Addressing both challenges head-on, engineers at RMIT have partnered with AGL's Loy Yang Power Station and the Ash Development Association of Australia to substitute 80% of the cement in concrete with coal fly ash.

RMIT project lead Dr Chamila Gunasekara said this represents a significant advance as existing low-carbon concretes typically have no more than 40% of their cement replaced with fly ash.

"Our addition of nano additives to modify the concrete’s chemistry allows more fly ash to be added without compromising engineering performance,” said Gunasekara, from RMIT’s School of Engineering.

 

Finding new opportunities in overlooked pond ash

Comprehensive lab studies have shown the team’s approach is also capable of harvesting and repurposing lower grade and underutilised ‘pond ash’– taken from coal slurry storage ponds at power plants – with minimal pre-processing.

Large concrete beam prototypes have been created using both fly ash and pond ash and shown to meet Australian Standards for engineering performance and environmental requirements.

“It’s exciting that preliminary results show similar performance with lower-grade pond ash, potentially opening a whole new hugely underutilised resource for cement replacement,” Gunasekara said.

“Compared to fly ash, pond ash is underexploited in construction due to its different characteristics. There are hundreds of megatonnes of ash wastes sitting in dams around Australia, and much more globally.”

“These ash ponds risk becoming an environmental hazard, and the ability to repurpose this ash in construction materials at scale would be a massive win.”

 

New modelling technology shows low-carbon concrete’s long-term resilience

A pilot computer modelling program developed by RMIT in partnership with Hokkaido University' Dr Yogarajah Elakneswaran has now been used to forecast the time-dependent performance of these new concrete mixtures.

According to Dr Yuguo Yu, an expert in virtual computational mechanics at RMIT, a longstanding challenge in the field has been to understand how newly developed materials will stand the test of time.

“We’ve now created a physics-based model to predict how the low-carbon concrete will perform over time, which offers us opportunities to reverse engineer and optimise mixes from numerical insights,” Yu explained.

This pioneering approach – recently unveiled in the prestigious journal Cement and Concrete Research – reveals how various ingredients in the new low-carbon concrete interact over time.

“We’re able to see, for example, how the quick-setting nano additives in the mix act as a performance booster during the early stages of setting, compensating for the large amounts of slower-setting fly ash and pond ash in our mixes,” Gunasekara says.

“The inclusion of ultra-fine nano additives significantly enhances the material by increasing density and compactness.”

This modelling, with its wide applicability to various materials, marks a crucial stride towards digitally assisted simulation in infrastructure design and construction.

By leveraging this technology, the team aims to instil confidence among local councils and communities in adopting novel low-carbon concrete for various applications.

This research was enabled by the ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Transformation of Reclaimed Waste Resources to Engineered Materials and Solutions for a Circular Economy (TREMS). Led by RMIT’s Professor Sujeeva Setunge, TREMS brings together top scientists, researchers and industry experts from nine Australian universities and 36 state, industry, and international partners to minimise landfill waste and repurpose reclaimed materials for construction and advanced manufacturing.

Relevant studies

‘Unified hydration model for multi-blend fly ash cementitious systems of wide-range replacement rates’ is published in Cement and Concrete Research (DOI: 10.1016/j.cemconres.2024.107487)   

‘Sulphate and acid resistance of HVFA concrete incorporating nano silica’ is published in Construction and Building Materials (DOI: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2023.132004) 

‘Long term mechanical performance of nano-engineered high volume fly ash concrete’ is published in Journal of Building Engineering (DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2021.103168) 

Dr Chamila Gunasekara holds a sample of the low-carbon concrete.

CREDIT

Michael Quin, RMIT University.

JORNAL

Cement and Concrete Research

DOI

10.1016/j.cemconres.2024.107487 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Unified hydration model for multi-blend fly ash cementitious systems of wide-range replacement rates

 

Using solar energy to generate heat at high temperatures

ETH ZURICH

 

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ILLUSTRATION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL THERMAL TRAP. IT CONSISTS OF A QUARTZ ROD (INSIDE) AND A CERAMIC ABSORBER (OUTSIDE). SOLAR RADIATION ENTERS AT THE FRONT, HEAT IS GENERATED IN THE REAR AREA.

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CREDIT: VISUALIZATIONS: CASATI E ET AL. DEVICE 2024, EDITED

The production of cement, metals and many chemical commodities requires extremely high temperatures of over a thousand degrees Celsius. At present, this heat is usually obtained by combusting fossil fuels: coal or natural gas, which emit large amounts of greenhouse gases. Heating with renewable electricity is not an alternative, as this would be inefficient at these high temperatures. Although much of our economy and society will need to become carbon neutral in the coming decades, these industrial processes are likely to continue to be powered by fossil fuels for the near future. They are considered difficult to decarbonise.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have now demonstrated, in the lab, a way to make these industries independent of fossil fuels. Using solar radiation, they have engineered a device that can deliver heat at the high temperatures needed for the production processes. The team led by Emiliano Casati, a scientist in the Energy and Process Systems Engineering Group, and Aldo Steinfeld, Professor of Renewable Energy Carriers, has developed a thermal trap. It consists of a quartz rod coupled to a ceramic absorber which, thanks to its optical properties, can efficiently absorb sunlight and convert it into heat.

In their lab-​scale experiments, the team used a quartz rod measuring 7.5 centimetres in diameter and 30 centimetres in length. They exposed it to artificial light with an intensity equivalent to 135 times that of sunlight, reaching temperatures of up to 1050 degrees Celsius. Previous studies by other researchers have achieved a maximum of 170 degrees with such thermal traps.

Large-​scale solar concentrating technologies are already established at an industrial scale for solar power generation, for example in Spain, the US and in China. These plants typically operate at up to 600 degrees. At higher temperatures, heat loss by radiation increases and reduces the efficiency of the plants. A major advantage of the thermal trap developed by ETH Zurich researchers is that it minimises radiative heat losses.

High-​temperature solar plants

Our approach significantly improves the efficiency of solar absorption,” says Casati. “We are, therefore, confident that this technology supports the deployment of high-​temperature solar plants.” However, detailed technical and economic analyses are still pending, he says. Such analysis is beyond the scope of the current experimental study, which the researchers have published in the scientific journal Device.

Casati is continuing his research to optimise the process. The technology could one day make it possible to use solar energy not only to generate electricity, but also to decarbonise energy-​intensive industries on a large scale. “To combat climate change, we need to decarbonise energy in general," says Casati. “People often think of energy in terms of electricity, but we actually use about half of our energy in the form of heat.”

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JOURNAL

Device

DOI

10.1016/j.device.2024.100399 

ARTICLE TITLE

Solar thermal trapping at 1,000°C and above

 

Scientists develop new geochemical ‘fingerprint’ to trace contaminants in fertilizer

Heavy metals pollution traced back to mineral-based fertilizers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

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A PERSON'S HANDS CUP A SAMPLE OF PELLETIZED AGRICULTURAL FERTLIZER AND A PIECE OF THE PHOSPHATE ROCK FROM WHICH IT IS CREATED.

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CREDIT: ROBERT HILL, DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM N.C. – An international team of scientists has uncovered toxic metals in mineral phosphate fertilizers worldwide by using a new tool to identify the spread and impact of such contaminants on soil, water resources, and food supply.

“While mineral phosphate fertilizers are critical to boost global sustainable agriculture and food security, we found high levels of toxic metals in many fertilizers worldwide,” said Avner Vengosh, chair of the Earth and Climate Sciences division at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “Our study developed a new method to identify sources and impacts of these metals on the environment.” Those metals included cadmium, uranium, arsenic, vanadium, and chromium.

Use of mineral fertilizer – synthetic or naturally occurring substances with essential nutrients needed for plant growth – has helped boost sustainable crop yields worldwide. But until recently, its contamination with toxic metals has not been systematically evaluated. This new study analyzes global phosphate fertilizers from major phosphate-mining countries.

“We measured strontium isotopes in both phosphate rocks and fertilizers generated from those rocks to show how fertilizers’ isotope ‘fingerprint’ matches their original source,” said Robert Hill, the study’s lead author and a PhD student at Duke University.

Isotopes are variations of an element, in this case strontium. Chemical analysis of each fertilizer shows a unique isotope mix that matches phosphate rocks from where it was sourced.

“Given variations of strontium isotopes in global phosphate rocks, we have established a unique tool to detect fertilizers’ potential impact worldwide,” Hill said.

To learn whether strontium isotopes are a reliable indicator of trace elements in fertilizer worldwide, researchers analyzed 76 phosphate rocks, the main source of phosphate fertilizers, and 40 fertilizers from major phosphate rock-producing regions including the western United States, China, India, North Africa and the Middle East. Researchers collected samples from mines, commercial sources, and Tidewater Research Station, an experimental field in North Carolina. The research team published its findings on May 9, 2024 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

Metals found in soil and groundwater come from both naturally occurring and human-made sources.

“Strontium isotopes essentially are a ‘fingerprint’ that can reveal contamination in groundwater and soil worldwide,” said Vengosh. His research team has also used strontium isotopes to trace environmental contamination in landfill leaching, coal mining, coal ash, fracking fluids, and groundwater that is pulled to the surface with  oil and natural gas extraction.

“The isotope is a proxy to identify the source of contamination,” Vengosh said. “Without this tool, it is difficult to identify, contain, and remediate contamination linked to fertilizer.”

Fertilizers in the study showed different concentrations of trace elements, with higher levels observed in fertilizers from the U.S. and the Middle East compared to those from China and India. As a result, the researchers conclude that  phosphate fertilizers from the U.S. and the Middle East will have a greater impact on soil quality due to their higher concentrations of uranium, cadmium, chromium as compared to fertilizers from China and India, which have higher concentrations of arsenic.

The National Science Foundation funded this study. (EAR-2305946)

CITATION: “Tracing the Environmental Effects of Mineral Fertilizer Application with Trace Elements and Strontium Isotope Variations,” Robert C. Hill, Gordon D. Z. Williams, Zhen Wang, Jun Hu, Tayel El-Hasan, Owen W. Duckworth, Ewald Schnug, Roland Bol, Anjali Singh, and Avner Vengosh. Environmental Science & Technology Letters, May 9, 2024. DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00170

Online: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00170

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

DOI

10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00170 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Tracing the Environmental Effects of Mineral Fertilizer Application with Trace Elements and Strontium Isotope Variations

 

Ancient arachnid from coal forests of America stands out for its spiny legs

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

IMAGE: 

FOSSILIZED DOUGLASSARACHNE ACANTHOPODA, NOTED FOR ITS UP-ARMORED SPINY LEGS, MIGHT HAVE RESEMBLANCE TO MODERN HARVESTMEN SPIDERS, BUT WITH A MORE EXPERIMENTAL BODY PLAN.

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CREDIT: PAUL SELDEN

LAWRENCE — More than 300 million years ago, all sorts of arachnids crawled around the Carboniferous coal forests of North America and Europe. These included familiar ones we’d recognize, such as spiders, harvestmen and scorpions — as well exotic animals that now occur in warmer regions like whip spiders and whip scorpions.

But there were also quite bizarre arachnids in these habitats belonging to now extinct groups. Even among these stranger species now lost to time, one might have stood out for its up-armored legs.

The ancient critter recently was described in a new paper published in the Journal of Paleontology, co-written by Paul Selden from the University of Kansas and the Natural History Museum of London and Jason Dunlop from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

“Douglassarachne acanthopoda comes from the famous Mazon Creek locality in Illinois and is about 308 million years old,” said lead author Selden. “This compact arachnid had a body length of about 1.5 centimeters and is characterized by its remarkably robust and spiny legs — such that it is quite unlike any other arachnid known, living or extinct.”

The KU researcher said Carboniferous Coal Measures are an important source of information for fossil arachnids, representing the first time in Earth’s history when most living groups of arachnids occurred together. Yet, the fauna was still quite different to today.

“Spiders were a rather rare group, only known at that time from primitive lineages, and they shared these ecosystems with various arachnids which have long since died out,” said co-author Dunlop. “Douglassarachne acanthopoda is a particularly impressive example of one of these extinct forms. The fossil’s very spiny legs are reminiscent of some modern harvestmen, but its body plan is quite different from a harvestman or any other known arachnid group.”

This led the two scientists to conclude it doesn’t belong in any of the known arachnid orders.

“Unfortunately, details such as the mouth parts cannot be seen, which makes it difficult to say exactly which group of arachnids are its closest relatives, Selden said. "It could belong to a wider group, which includes spiders, whip spiders and whip scorpions. Whatever its evolutionary affinities, these spiny arachnids appear to come from a time when arachnids were experimenting with a range of different body plans. Some of these later became extinct, perhaps during the so-called ‘Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse,’ a time shortly after the age of Mazon Creek when the coal forests began to fragment and die off. Or perhaps these strange arachnids clung on until the end Permian mass extinction?”

According to the team, Mazon Creek fossil locality is one of the most important windows into life in the late Carboniferous, producing a wide range of fascinating plants and animals. The present fossil was discovered in a clay-ironstone concretion in the 1980s by Bob Masek and later acquired by the David and Sandra Douglass Collection and displayed in their Prehistoric Life Museum.

“The genus name Douglassarachne acknowledges the Douglass family, who kindly donated the specimen to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for scientific study once it became apparent that it represented an undescribed species,” Dunlop said. “Then, acanthopoda refers to the unique and characteristic spiny legs of the animal.”

Reconstruction of the 308-million-year-old arachnid Douglassarachne acanthopoda from the famous Mazon Creek locality. 

CREDIT

Paul Selden et al

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JOURNAL

Journal of Paleontology

DOI

10.1017/jpa.2024.13 

Banks Remain Financially Committed to Oil Despite Transition Shift

By Irina Slav - May 16, 2024
• 
  
• The world’s 60 largest banks have invested $6.9 trillion in the oil and gas industry since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2016.
• Oil Change International reported, $3.3 trillion went towards expanding the production of hydrocarbon energy.
• 
  
• Worse still for climate NGOs, funding for fracking increased last year as well, reaching $59 billion.

There is no large international bank without a net-zero plan. These plans invariably include curbs in lending to the oil and gas industry. Yet despite these plans. Most of the world’s top lenders continue doing business with the oil industry—and they’ve been doing more of it lately.

The revelation comes from the 15^th annual Banking on Climate Chaos report authored by an organization called Oil Change International, part of a group of climate NGOs committed to putting an end to the oil and gas industry.

According to this report, the world’s 60 largest banks have invested $6.9 trillion in the oil and gas industry since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2016, marking the official start of the global net-zero shift. Of this, Oil Change International reported, $3.3 trillion went towards expanding the production of hydrocarbon energy.

This is bad enough news from the climate NGO perspective, certainly, but it is not the only bad news. What’s worse than a total of $6.9 trillion in hydrocarbon investment is an investment of $705 billion for 2023 alone—with some segments of the industry seeing increases in bank funding. This, in a world with a net-zero agenda, should not be happening, especially when banks are making decarbonization pledges and officially shrinking their business dealings with oil and gas producers. Yet not all of them are doing it.

Oil Change International, for lack of other tools, uses naming and shaming to sound the alarm of banks financing oil and gas, calling what it sees as the worst net-zero offenders “The Dirty Dozen”.

Those are led by JP Morgan, which invested $430.9 billion in the oil and gas industry between 2016 and 2023. At number two, we have Citi, with oil and gas exposure of $396.3 billion for the period, followed by Bank of America, which invested $333.3 billion between the signing of the Paris Agreement and last year.

The “Dirty Dozen” also includes lenders such as Barclays, MUFG, Scotiabank, and HSBC, as well as RBC and the report includes a lot of language aimed at making these banks feel embarrassed about their business practices. What it doesn’t do is ask the question that this information begs: why are banks investing so much in oil and gas?

The answer, of course, lies in the financial reports of oil companies and news reports such as the one that Global Witness released this February, stating Big Oil majors paid their shareholders a record $111 billion in dividends on the back of record profits for 2022. Those record profits were driven by the energy crunch in Europe that highlighted the importance of energy security in a way that everyone could understand—except climate NGOs, it appears.

The Oil Change International report says that financing for liquefied natural gas increased last year, hitting $120.9 billion. From their perspective, this must be a worrying trend. From the perspective of the banks themselves, this is good business—because demand for LNG is on the rise with Europe switching from pipelines to LNG carriers. Even record electricity generation from wind and solar in 2023 did not depress demand for liquefied gas.

Worse still for climate NGOs, funding for fracking increased last year as well, reaching $59 billion, provided to a total 236 companies by lenders including already named and shamed JP Morgan, Citi, and BofA, along with Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo. The reason this happened was that demand for oil, including shale oil, was also on the rise, just like demand for natural gas.

The energy demand conundrum is the ultimate challenge for the climate NGO crowd. Protests and road-gluing spectacles may attract attention—although sometimes it is the wrong kind of attention—but the net-zero agenda cannot be followed if demand for hydrocarbons remains as strong as it has been in all the years since the signing of the Paris Agreement.

Attempts to destroy this demand, however, have invariably failed. The buildout of alternative sources of electricity to gas and coal are thriving, with governments spending billions on supporting them. Even so, wind and solar have been unable to cope with the rise in electricity demand and now there are warnings that more gas power plants would need to be built to respond to the expected surge in that demand that the IT sector will drive.

In transport, EV sales have grown strongly thanks to equally strong government support and yet even in Norway, which has the highest per-capita adoption rate, oil demand has not declined. Some of the world’s top carmakers are losing hundreds of thousands on the EVs they produce and they only keep doing it because their gasoline and diesel vehicles are still selling well.

Pointing the finger at banks for their lending to the oil and gas industry without acknowledging the reasons they are doing it would, in any other context, be considered sloppy work. Yet in this case, the reasons for banks to continue funding oil and gas are too inconvenient for the activists tracking this funding. These reasons are that oil and gas make money and that it is very good money—because people want reliable, affordable energy.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

Big Banks Have Funded Climate Crisis With Nearly $7 Trillion Since Paris Agreement

"Banks that profit from climate chaos invent new greenwash every year, but we have the receipts that show how much money they put into fossil fuels," said one report author.

Protesters picket outside a Chase Bank branch in November 2019.
(Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

OLIVIA ROSANE
May 13, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The world's 60 biggest banks funded fossil fuels to the tune of $6.9 trillion in the eight years following the Paris agreement.

That's the conclusion of the 15th annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, which was published Monday and also found that the financial institutions lavished $705 billion on oil, gas, and coal in 2023—the hottest year on record.

"Financiers and investors of fossil fuels continue to light the flame of the climate crisis," Tom BK Goldtooth, report co-author and executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement. "Paired with generations of colonialism, the fossil fuel industry and banking institutions' investment in false solutions create unlivable conditions for all living relatives and humanity on Mother Earth."

U.S. financial giants JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America topped the "dirty dozen" list of the banks that gave the most to fossil fuels since 2016, at $430.9 billion, $396.3 billion, and $333.2 billion respectively. In 2023, U.S. banks provided 30% of total fossil fuel finance, the largest share of any country. JPMorgan also topped the 2023 list at $40.88 billion, with Japanese bank Mizuho Financial overtaking the No. 2 spot with $37.04 billion, and Bank of America remaining in third place with $33.68 billion.




"The science shows that over half of fossil fuels in existing fields and mines must stay underground to limit global warming to 1.5°C, and our Big Oil Reality Check analysis finds that none of the major oil and gas companies we analyze plan to do anything even close to what is needed to hold global warming to 1.5°C," report-co-author David Tong, the global industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement. "By injecting a staggering $70[5] billion into fossil fuel financing in 2023 alone, the world's largest banks fund the climate chaos fossil fuel companies wreck on communities worldwide."

The report also tracks how much the financial institutions spent on companies that had fossil fuel expansion plans, according to the Global Oil and Gas Exit List and the Global Coal Exit List. The banks spent $3.3 trillion since 2016 and $347.5 billion in 2023 alone on these companies, or nearly half of total expenditures. Report co-author April Merleaux, research and policy manager at Rainforest Action Network, called the 2023 expansion finance figure "dangerous and inconsistent with real climate commitments."

Overall, Citibank has spent the most on fossil fuel expansion since 2016 at $204 billion, while JPMorgan was the top funder of expansion in 2023 with $19.3 billion.

"As this report is worth nothing if it doesn't turn into action, we call on the banks to finally become fossil free banks, and on the wider climate justice movement to use this data to mobilize for a fossil free banking world."

The researchers also looked at what fossil fuel companies and activities the banks were financing. All told, they considered funding to 4,228 companies. Clients with major expansion plans in 2023 included the pipeline companies Enbridge, TC Energy Corp, and Sempra as well as NextDecade Corp and Rio Grande Valley LNG, which are developing new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity.

Fossil fuel financing did decrease in 2023, down from $778.7 billion in 2022.

"The trend of decreased financing from traditional banks to fossil fuel companies is good news, tempered by the reality that financing for fossil fuel expansion should be zero," the report authors wrote. "But there is little evidence that the decline is driven by voluntary commitments by the banks, especially given the policy rollbacks among major banks."


Indeed, in 2023, Bank of America rolled back commitments to not fund Arctic drilling, thermal coal, or coal-fired plants. Instead, the report authors suggested the downturn in finance was due to external economic and geopolitical factors.

"Unless banks take action to rule out finance for such clients, the decline may not be permanent," they warned.

When it came to the funding of individual high-risk fossil fuel activities, funding for overall expansion, fracking, tar sands, coal- and gas-power plants, and Amazon, Arctic, and deepwater oil and gas all declined. At the same time, funding for metallurgical coal, coal mining, and methane LNG all increased, with LNG funding rising from $116 billion in 2022 to $121 billion in 2023.

"In a year with record climate impacts, I am shocked to see financing for any category of fossil fuels increase. And yet in 2023 this report shows a big increase in financing to companies developing methane gas terminals and related infrastructure," Merleaux said. "Banks should be listening to those on the frontlines and stepping away from these projects."

This year the report—which is a collaboration between Rainforest Action Network; BankTrack; the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development; Indigenous Environmental Network; Oil Change International; Reclaim Finance; Sierra Club; and Urgewald— features updated methodology that primary sources revealing the role of banks in corporate financial deals. The banks were given a chance to review the data and respond.

"Wall Street's top concern is its profit. Our top concerns are the climate and human rights. Banks that profit from climate chaos invent new greenwash every year, but we have the receipts that show how much money they put into fossil fuels," Merleaux said. "Our new methodology uncovers previously unreported details on banks' support for fossil fuels and gives campaigners new tools to hold them accountable."

Accountability is the report's main goal, according to co-author Diogo Silva, who leads the banks and climate campaign at BankTrack.

"As this report is worth nothing if it doesn't turn into action, we call on the banks to finally become fossil free banks, and on the wider climate justice movement to use this data to mobilize for a fossil free banking world," Silva said. "Later might just be too late. Fossil banks, no thanks!"

Global coal phase-out to cost between $200 billion, $2 trillion – study

by Staff

 (Mining.com – May 16, 2024)
May 17, 2024


Over $200 billion will be given as compensation to workers and local communities affected by coal phase-out programs globally, new research has found. This estimate excludes India and China, as the two largest coal users currently do not have phase-out plans.

According to a recent paper in Nature Communications, if China and India decide to phase out coal as fast as needed to reach the Paris climate targets and pay similar compensation, it would cost upwards of $2 trillion.

The researchers, hailing from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the Central European University in Austria, have studied all countries with coal phase-out plans around the world and found that those with the most coal power production and with plans for rapid phase-out have compensation policies in place.

Massive price tag on phasing out coal burning

Published: 15 May 2024

The world will need to find $2 trillion to compensate communities who suffer from the phasing out of coal burning. | Photo: REC Visual (iStock)

Phasing out coal to meet international climate targets would cost at least $US 2 trillion, a new assessment has concluded.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and Central European University in Austria say that compensation already committed amounts to $200 billion.

“But it excludes China and India, the two largest users of coal that currently do not have phase-out plans,” Science Daily reported.

“The study shows that if China and India decide to phase out coal as fast as needed to reach the Paris climate targets and pay similar compensation, it would cost upwards of $US 2 trillion.”

The research found that more than half of the in-place plans to phase out coal burning around the world included provision for compensation to mitigate the impact on communities that depended on coal.

“Many governments, mostly in Europe, have begun to phase-out coal, but these policies can harm companies, risk unemployment and lead to economic hardship for coal-dependent regions,” the research report said.

“In response, some countries have adopted what are known as ‘just transition’ strategies, where governments support negatively impacted companies, workers, and regions.

“Germany for example, has pledged over EUR 40 billion to support those affected by coal phase-out.”

In total, 23 countries with 16 percent of the world’s coal power plants have pledged compensation. The researchers found the compensation was still cheaper than the carbon prices that would need to be paid in Europe.

“A big question thus is where such large sums of money would come from,” Science Daily said.

“Today about half of all compensation is funded from international sources such as Just Energy Transition Partnerships supporting coal phase-out in Vietnam, Indonesia and South Africa.

“International finance might also be needed to support future coal phase-out compensation in major coal consuming countries. However, the researchers point out that the estimated amounts of compensation for China and India alone are comparable to the entire international climate finance pledged in Paris, and larger than current international development aid to these countries.”