Read the latest insights and analysis from the experts at Oil Change International.
With only six months left till COP26, the UK host has work to do. Ending public finance for fossil fuel projects overseas shows potential, but the UK’s lack of action on fossil fuels domestically risks undermining its credibility.
On November 10, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists — Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine — were hanged by the Nigerian dictatorship in Port Harcourt. Their only crime? Exposing the devastating impact that Shell Petroleum Development Company’s extraction of fossil fuels from the Niger Delta had on the Ogoni land, lives, and livelihoods.
Export Development Canada (EDC), Canada’s government-backed export credit agency, has long been one of the worst in the world when it comes to backing the fossil fuel industry with public money. Their new climate policy opens the door for meaningful change, but the initial targets are far too weak to get the job done.
The current crisis is a clear warning sign that, if governments leave the “when” and “how” of the end of oil and gas up to tumultuous markets, the outcome will not be good for either people or the planet.
OCI is producing weekly news and resources updates for allies as part of our response to the COVID-19 crisis.
You cannot underestimate that seismic shift going on as investors, often drunk on big oil profits, now just face uncertainty and loss. The oceans are awash with bobbing tankers full of oil, with no market to sell them. The industry is paralysed by the pandemic.
There is no doubt we are at a historical moment with the industry in deep structural and financial trouble and where a post-COVID-19 recovery could see a radical shift away from oil and into a just transition into renewables. But will that happen?
On the 10th Anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, “If anything, another disaster is more likely today as the oil industry drills deeper and farther offshore."
By all accounts Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic has been a disaster for months.
