Climate Action » Greenpeace

Offshore Drilling Overview and Other Hot Pubs

USCAN — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:13:04 +0000

USCAN MEMBER REPORTS

World Bank: An April 14^th report by Friends of the Earth and several other non-governmental organizations highlights the World Bank’s continued detrimental financing of fossil fuels. According to seven case studies of the report “World Bank, Climate Change and Energy Financing: Something Old. Something New?” the Bank’s increase in carbon-intensive financing and support for large-scale energy projects are ineffective at alleviating poverty. To worsen the problem, environmental and social safeguards apply to an ever decreasing share of the Bank’s financing portfolio. In cases where rules do apply, the Bank has not incorporated lessons from previous project failings. Overall, deep questions remain about the institution’s ability to meet is sustainability and development goals.

BP Oil Disaster Review: An April 20^th report “Deepwater Horizon: One Year On” by Greenpeace discusses the U.S. government’s reaction to the BP Gulf Coast oil disaster, BP’s role in its aftermath, efforts to determine the impact of this catastrophe, and subsequent regulatory changes. Despite the tragic consequences of this disaster, the industry and government were not required to abide by any of the stringent recommendations made three months later by the National Oil Spill Commission. On top of efforts to control scientific research, BP has also negotiated a deal to resume deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 2011.

Offshore Drilling Threats: An April report “Lingering Threats: One Year After Gulf Oil Disaster, Offshore Drilling Still Urgently Needs Reform” by the Center for Biological Diversity outlines ten remaining regulatory and policy problems. Among the recommendations is the need to eliminate “categorical exclusion” for drilling plans and permits, as well as require full public and expert environmental reviews. Regulators must eradicate outdated assumptions about the likelihood and environmental impacts of oil spills. They must also revise the environmental impact statement for offshore activities in the Gulf before permitting new projects. Concerns about the performance of blowout preventers should be addressed, and dispersants approved for oil-spill response should undergo a thorough scientific review. Congress must also require that oil companies be fully accountable for drilling risks.

Gulf Oil Disaster, Wetlands, and Wildlife:

An April 12^th report by the National Wildlife Federation examines the health of the Gulf’s wildlife and wetlands. According to the report “The Long Road to Recovery: Wildlife and Wetlands One Year into the Gulf Oil Disaster”, the tragedy deal a serious blow to the area’s endangered sea turtles and negatively affected the already-strained population of bluefin tuna. The BP oil disaster exacerbated the long-term degradation of wetlands habitat, which loses an area the size of a football field every 38 minutes. Without legislation to direct fines and penalties from the disaster to restoring the Gulf Coast’s ecosystems – along with a comprehensive Gulf Coast restoration program – the outlook for Gulf recovery remains uncertain.

OTHER REPORTS

Climate Change Costs: The April study “Pay Now, Pay Later” by the American Security Project offers a state-by-state breakdown of climate change costs for various industries in each of the 50 U.S. States. According to the bipartisan institute, the costs of coping with climate change outweigh the costs of prevention; for every state, transitioning to alternative energy sources is less expensive than relying on dirty energy. In Florida, for instance, the economic losses will surpass $3,100 per household as early as 2025. In Alaska, the melting permafrost could add over $6 billion to public infrastructure costs in the next 20 years. In the Southeast, Lake Mead could dry up as soon as 2021 – leaving up to 36 million people without a dependable water supply. In Midwest states, increases in temperature and rainfall could cost over $9 billion in lost agriculture profits.

Koch Industries Finances Climate Denier Factions

Keith Schneider — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:55:16 +0000

The work to achieve a climate and energy bill in the United States is moving with considerably slower momentum this spring than it did at the same time last year. A number of factors contribute, not the least of which is the time and focus that the White House and Democrats in Congress devoted to enacting a national health care bill, which passed earlier this month. Another factor is the flagging U.S. economy and the meager appetite that many voters and lawmakers have for big new domestic initiatives, like the proposed climate and clean energy bill.

Still, the wearying health debate and the Great Recession do not fully explain the uphill struggle of climate activism. Another factor is at work. After years of swinging away at the climate action community’s formidable message of urgency and useful solutions, the fossil fuel industry’s rhetorical axes nearly four months ago found a soft spot in the scientific details of climate change.

The climate action community’s response has been double-barrelled. In December when the email conversations of climate scientists were stolen from East Anglia University, climate activists made a good case that nothing said between researchers damaged the foundations of the global consensus on the causes of climate change, its urgent consequences, and the opportunity for solutions that generated new industries and new jobs.

The second response has been to penetrate and uncover the full range, influence, structure, and interlocking relationships of the fossil fuel political infrastructure, which is actively involved in fostering the campaign of scientific deceit. The results of that work have emerged in the last couple of weeks.

Last week Greenpeace International published “Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Industry and Climate Science,” which documented the 20-year campaign led by ExxonMobil to exploit the space the mainstream media opened with its “let’s hear from the other side” principle of reporting. Meanwhile in Europe, Danish newspapers picked up the story initially flagged by Pete Altman, a climate specialist and blogger at NRDC, who reported that a Danish study critical of Danish wind energy was financed by an American activist think tank with financial ties to oil-rich Koch Industries.

This week Greenpeace advanced the story enormously with its new report, “Koch Industries: Secretly Funding The Climate Denial Machine.” The report makes clear that Koch Industries is, and has been for over a decade, a stalwart institution, financier, and strategic adviser for the fossil fuel industry’s political infrastructure aimed at one outcome: Blocking the advent of the low-carbon 21^st century economy and wrapping its arms as snugly as it can around the 20^th century drive-through, energy wasting, coal-gas-oil-fueled American way of life.

The Greenpeace report also describes how Koch Industries, with revenues of $100 billion annually, 70,000 employees, and operations in 60 countries can execute this goal with a shockingly low investment. The report identifies over 40 climate denial organizations that Koch funded from 1997 to 2008 for $50 million, roughly half of that from 2005 to 2008. In addition, Koch Industries spent less than $6 million since 2004 on the campaigns of federal lawmakers, almost all Republicans, and $37.9 million from 2006 to 2009 for direct lobbying.

In other words for an investment of less than $10 million annually in the lawmakers, lobbyists, activist think tanks, communications shops, and other facets of the political infrastructure, Koch Industries has assured the rising revenues and profitability of its core climate changing businesses.

Koch and its sister companies in the fossil fuel industry are so wealthy they can devote a tiny portion of their total revenue – a fraction of a fraction of 1 percent – to finance an influential inter-connected political infrastructure at the state level and in Washington.

The extent and expanse of that investment reveals the tight coordination that the fossil fuel industry deploys in executing its progress-denying work. Along with some of the usual suspects expected to receive Koch money — American Enterprise Institute, Cato, Heritage, Reason — the company also finances some of the active and influential state-based groups committed to “sound” science that is anything but.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan, for instance, whose staff includes a former libertarian anti-science state director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality now dedicated to clouding the science of climate in Lansing, the state capital. And the Heartland Institute in Chicago, a free market “think” tank that isn’t doing much thinking about climate action that right thinking people would generally consider valuable.

More on this and other investigations as we move forward.

– Keith Schneider

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Headquarters Designated a “Global Warming Crime Scene”

Suzanne Bopp — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:28:37 +0000

Yesterday, members of Greenpeace sent their own emergency response team to the scene of an environmental crime: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters. They declared the building a “Climate Policy Hostage Area,” and a “Global Warming Crime Scene.”

Greenpeace activists arrived in climate emergency vehicles, including squad cars from the “Climate Crime Unit” and an ambulance from the “Climate Emergency Response Unit.” Ascending 25-foot ladders, they wrapped the building with yellow caution tape. In a statement, Greenpeace statement detailed the charges against the U.S. Chamber: misleading the public about climate change, stalling action on climate protections and energy legislation and holding the international climate talks hostage. While the Chamber claims to support climate and clean energy legislation, it spends millions of dollars lobbying against any proposed bills.

Kumi Naidoo on Global Day of Climate Action

USCAN — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:59:43 +0000

Executive Director of Greenpeace International Kumi Naidoo speaks from Copenhagen on December 12, 2009 about the importance of action, both in civic and governmental realms, and offers a special appeal for Barack Obama.

Greenpeace Global Day of Climate Action Preparations

Rhys Gerholdt — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:45:47 +0000

Check out this behind the scenes look at Greenpeace International in Copenhagen where hundreds of activists prepare for the Global Day of Climate Action, December 12, 2009.