DeSmog’s Post

EXXON FEELS THE HEAT Exxon Feels the Heat as More Investors Assail Climate Conduct https://hubs.la/Q02xgWYf0 Criticism of the oil giant, whose industry is the principal culprit behind global warming, has become an annual rite of spring. But this year may be different. #exxon #climateconduct #climatechange #globalwarming #energyindustry #oilandgasindustry

"It’s clear we can’t leave our planet’s future in the hands of fossil fuel giants prioritising profit over people." Exactly right. Expecting energy extraction from hydrocarbons companies to lead humanity in "transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner", as COP28 correctly concluded that we must, feels like an expectation that contain within itself the seeds of its own disappointment. The Earth needs different advice from its lawyers. One innovatively lawyerly thing we might consider is the interest of workers who are working, in part, for a pension that promises them income security in a dignified retirement, and their power to bargain, pursuant to that promise, with the fiduciaries of the trusts that are created and sustained to provision that promise over whether and what those trusts can do as investors to finance the "transitioning away" that every worker needs us to be making if they want to retire into a dignified future of energy sufficiency complete with habitat longevity and social equity [in real world, real time terms: not a world rocked by mammoth hurricanes, epic floods, devastating droughts, raging wildfires and other cataclysms of a changing climate that is diminishing the habitats on earth that we humans can inhabit]). A pension is a contract, which is a creature of the law. A trust to provision a pension contract is an institution also created by the law. Using US pension trust law and policy as a proxy for pension trust law and policy more generally, our Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") tells us that workers are entitled to see their fiduciaries exercising: "care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims.” The law tells us that aims of a pension trust are the investment of money (California Constitution) for income as well as safety (The Massachusetts Rule of Harvard v Amory, 1830) to assure (California Constitution) income security in a dignified retirement for workers (US Senate HELP Committee). Character is more fact than law, and includes vast size, programmatic purpose and forever time. Capacity is also more fact than law. It includes the power to use the technologies of spreadsheet math, desktop publishing and digital communication to negotiate with enterprise of any size, in any business, anywhere on the planet. See, e.g. Private Equity. So our questions as Proxies for the Earth (and workers) become: Who can and should pension fiduciaries be negotiating with on climate action? And what can and should they be negotiating for?

The ONLY way forward with these groups is mandatory Carbon Taxing at the highest levels, they will not change until forced. Any doubters look at Hurricane Milton in the USA biggest in 100 years. Two weeks before Hurricane Hélène killed so far 260 people. #COP29 #bigoil #carbontaxes #UN #unfccc #government #labour #manslaughter #governmentliability

How do we “close the gates to hell” – the rampant coal, oil and gas industries – and plot the course for a just transition to clean energy and low-carbon solutions? Cara Pike, Senior Communications Advisor to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, explains, “What we’re really trying to do with this initiative is to go after the fossil fuel industry, which has long been deceiving us about its impacts on climate, human health and wellbeing, and the entire web of life. Those companies have engaged in massive greenwashing campaigns and lobbying efforts to water down the language in climate agreements, to dupe the public and to halt or slow progress to a green economy.” In this Bioneers panel discussion, learn about the international movement calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty from a group of civil society, government and Indigenous leaders involved in the effort: https://buff.ly/3Wd8pSK #ClimateJustice #FossilFuelNonProliferationTreaty #FossilFuelDivestment

Exxon's CEO has recently stated that we should "blame ourselves" for the effects of climate change. I think the only solution to address this issue is to require companies to price scope 3 emissions into their products. This requires a regulatory approach and will face opposition from powerful lobbies, but it's the necessary step towards a sustainable future. Check out the article below to learn more. #ClimateChange #Sustainability #Regulation

Great piece from Australian Associated Press (AAP) on our latest research on corporate greenwash in Australia: “Leading Australian companies are 'talking the talk' on climate but failing to follow through on green commitments, posing a threat to national climate targets.” A significant majority of the most influential Australian companies and industry associations advocated for a continued role for fossil fuels, contradicting the IPCC’s science-based recommendations and potentially contributing to the Australian Labor Government’s recent concessions to the fossil fuel sector, including formalized approvals for Bowen Coking Coal's Isaac River Coal Mine and Santos' coal seam gas expansion in Queensland's Surat Basin.    Read the article: https://lnkd.in/ehCD59UZ Read our report: https://lnkd.in/eJVtpSdz  

The playbook is this: sell consumers a product that you know is dangerous, while publicly denying or downplaying those dangers. Then, when the dangers are no longer deniable, deny responsibility and blame the consumer. These are the words of Oreskes Naomi speaking on Outrage + Optimism. Troves of internal documents and analyses have established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating as far back as the 1970s, but forcefully and successfully worked to sow doubt about the climate crisis and stymie action to clamp down on fossil fuel usage. Fossil fuel companies have worked with some of the biggest PR firms in the world to shape how people think about climate change and the fossil fuel industry, ensuring that a hefty dose of climate denial always existed among the public.

The prime beneficiaries of plans to allow corporations more license to use #carboncredits to cut total emissions may end up being the main perpetrators of the global climate disaster: oil and gas companies. The fossil fuel industry is “the elephant in the room when we talk about #Scope3 emissions,” according to Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of environment and climate change. In an interview she said: “Oil and gas have proved to be the least interested in actually reducing their huge Scope 3 emissions and have the most to gain by simply offsetting them. As I saw during my four years as environment minister in Canada, oil and gas was not only unwilling to be part of the solution, they worked at every opportunity to thwart progress on climate.” My reporting also shows that McKenna made a similar point to Francesco Starace, chair of the Science Based Targets initiative's (#SBTi) board, during a video conference late last year, though she declined to comment on the call, as did Srarace and SBTi. During the call—held months before SBTi seemingly changed its stance on carbon credits — Starace said oil and gas companies shouldn’t be ostracized but instead considered “part of the solution” to the climate problem, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the call was confidential. McKenna warned Starace against carbon offsets and to guard against external pressure when developing standards for the industry, the person said Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eKsd95g7 #climatechange #netzero

UN-Chief sees same ‘exit off the highway to climate hell’ as Follow This: Big Oil must change After being sued by Exxon for filing a climate resolution, it is comforting to know that the Secretary-General of the United Nations is on our side when it comes to climate action by oil companies. “The Godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil fuel conglomerates – rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies,” Guterres said. He pointed out that, while billions around the world face rising costs and climate impacts, fossil fuel giants continue to profit. "We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell, and the truth is we have control of the wheel,” Secretary-General António Guterres said in a recent speech in New York. “The need for climate action is unprecedented, but so is the opportunity, not just to deliver on climate but on economic prosperity and sustainable development,” Mr. Guterres explained. Clean energy investments reached a record high last year, almost doubling in the past decade, the UN chief said. “Economic logic makes the end of the fossil fuel age inevitable,” he added. These statements highlight what Follow This advocates: Climate change is a solvable problem, but Big Oil must change or Paris will fail. That's decision for shareholders. Watch the entire speech here: https://lnkd.in/e4xjRcPQ #climatechange #followthis #bigoil

'Black gold' tries to whitewash itself - and I ask myself: did futurists and foresight professionals collude with them in the past? And should they now be called to account? In this prime example of victim-blaming by the perpetrator, we are again told of the cover-up of the dangers of CO2 emissions by the fossil fuel industry: "Troves of internal documents and analyses have over the past decade established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating as far back as the 1970s, but forcefully and successfully worked to sow doubt about the climate crisis and stymie action to clamp down on fossil fuel usage. The revelations have inspired litigation against Exxon across the US. "What they’re really trying to do is to whitewash their own history, to make it invisible,” said Robert Brulle, an environment policy expert at Brown University who has researched climate disinformation spread by the fossil-fuel industry." Despite this outrageous deception by oil companies, futures and foresight textbooks still describe Shell's adept use of strategic foresight and scenario planning to leverage a competitive position in the industry, for example, as if that was something to be admired and as an example to be emulated. There is a breathtaking lack of concern for the wider ecosocial context, and the destructive effect of the oil industry on all of our futures. So what I'd like to know, as someone interested in futures and foresight from an existential risks perspective, is how many futures/strategic foresight professionals who were/are employed by the fossil fuel companies and contributed to their success, knew about their cover-up of the dangers but colluded with them. The Association of Professional Futurists is apparently in the process of developing a Code of Ethics. I think it's time that futurists reckon with their past. Ecocide is now officially a crime. So shouldn't there be a Nuremberg-style trial of futurists who knowingly contributed to the climate crisis? And if guilty, shouldn't they be (metaphorically speaking) lined up against a wall and shot? I think so. They should be excluded from futures organisations and shunned. They should be stripped of all credentials, and never be allowed to practice foresight again. Because they didn't have to do what they did. They could have told the companies that hired them - this is an industry that deserves to die, and you need to plan your exit from it. Rethink your whole purpose. Or you will literally send the world up in flames. That's what ethical futures and foresight practice looks like. I asked the Association of Professional Futurists this very question - should futurists be held to account for their pasts? - when I was thinking of joining it. They haven't yet replied. #futures #foresight #climateemergency #climatecrisis #oilindustry #fossilfuels #ethics