On 20 June, the supreme court in London set a powerful precedent affecting all future fossil fuel projects in the UK: it quashed Surrey county council’s decision to grant planning permission for 20 years of oil drilling at Horse Hill in Surrey, England.
The court ruled that the council had breached environmental law because it had not taken into consideration the greenhouse gas emissions that would come from burning the oil (probably for transport).
Up till now, only the carbon…
On 21 June, Fossil Free London dropped this large banner across a tower at Bodiam Castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, demanding that the National Trust, which owns Bodiam Castle, stop banking with Barclays, Europe’s biggest fossil-fuel funder since 2016. One of the National Trust’s core aims is to protect nature and climate.
On 9 July, climate activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) climbed on the roof of the county hall in Lewes to hold a banner saying: ‘ESCC: Which side are you on? Fossil fuels or climate action?’
On the ground, in front of the building, was a colourful and noisy Divest East Sussex (DES) protest featuring an ‘oil monster’ and a giant pair of cardboard scissors.
XR South East and DES, who had co-ordinated their actions, called on East Sussex county council (ESCC) to cut its ties…
Success in climate activism can take a lot of forms, and relatively few of them are glamorous. The change we work for might be too abstract to measure, or our role in it might be unclear. Perhaps, in difficult conditions, success might mean no more than keeping your head above the water.
Still, there are times when success can actually be joyful, epic and infectious, as in the case of the recent blockades on the Dutch capital’s A12 highway.
The shortest version of this story is…
Plans to hit consumers with higher electricity and gas bills to help energy companies with current and future unpaid bills have been scrapped after a campaign by Debt Justice (formerly Jubilee Debt Campaign).
£2.3 billion of household energy debt has built up during the cost of living crisis, some of which is unlikely to ever be paid back.
When 2,000 Debt Justice supporters told an Ofgem consultation it should be the companies that have profited in this crisis who bear the…
A major Japanese bank, the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), has been forced to withdraw from financing the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). This has been claimed as a win by the #StopEACOP coalition of over 260 civil society organisations.
The 900-mile-long heated pipeline, a project of French oil company Total and Chinese oil company CNOOC, threatens to displace thousands of families and farmers from their land and rip through numerous sensitive biodiversity…
Despite the severity of the climate crisis, oil and gas companies around the world are still on a massive expansion course.
That’s the conclusion of the latest authoritative GOGEL survey of oil and gas exploration and development, in a report launched on 10 November at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt.
GOGEL (the Global Oil and Gas Exit List) is a public database maintained by 51 respected NGOs including Urgewald of Germany.
GOGEL monitors the activities of 901 companies…
After a year of campaigning by environmentalists, the French government announced at the beginning of December it would not fund a gas megaproject in the Arctic.
It was going to support the French oil company, TotalEnergies, which is involved in ‘Arctic LNG 2’, a massive development in the Russian Arctic due to open in 2023.
It will turn locally-mined gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export. The plan is to produce 20 million tonnes of LNG a year.
So, the French…
If you haven’t been hiding under a rock for the last three years, you’ll probably have heard of ‘net zero’. This is the idea that, in order to address the climate crisis, we must rapidly bring about a balance between human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere and human-caused removals of the same.
The best versions of net zero could be part of the solution and a instrument for climate justice.
However, as Holly Jean Buck argues in this timely work, the…
At the beginning of November, the Conservative government announced a moratorium on fracking in the UK – ‘until compelling new evidence is provided’ proving that hydraulic fracturing of shale rock for oil and gas could be safe.
Anti-fracking activists, remembering the 2011 moratorium that was lifted in December 2012, said they would continue to campaign for an outright ban.
Steve Mason from Frack Free United said: ‘Our call has always been for an immediate halt to…
On 16 February, more than 300 activists (using 200 metres of black cloth) took over the British Museum in London in a performance protest against the sponsorship of an exhibition by BP, the oil and gas company. Protestors drew attention to BP’s role in the 2003 Iraq war and its contribution to climate change, holding a banner: ‘The British Museum – proudly sponsored by climate change.’
There is mixed news on one of Europe’s climate front lines, as activists have forced a German government commission to effectively rule out further coal-mining in the ancient Hambach forest near Cologne, while setting an inadequate (‘disastrous’) date for ending the use of coal in Germany.
Coal currently accounts for 40 percent of energy in Germany. In Britain, it’s around 10…
In the largest survey to date of the potential of rising renewable energy supplies, a new report from the Centre for Alternative Technology shows that clean energy can meet our electricity needs all year round at all times of the day.
Launched in the run up to the COP24 climate summit in Poland in December, the report, Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Across the Globe, maps over 130 scenarios designed to meet the targets of the Paris climate accord at global, regional…
On 12 July, Ireland became the first country to commit itself to completely divesting from fossil fuels. The country’s €8bn sovereign wealth fund will sell €300m of investments in 150 oil, gas and coal companies within the next five years.
Fossil fuel companies are defined as ones that have 20 percent or more of their revenues from exploring for, extracting or refining fossil fuels.
In June, climate group 350.org noticed that oil and gas company Shell had recognised ‘…
There can be few more dogged campaigners than David Polden.
When I arrived at the Jobs and Climate conference on 10 March at 10am, the start of the 45-minute registration period, the seasoned 77-year-old peace campaigner was already there, distributing flyers to the general public. Believing that the event would start at 10am, David had been there since 9.15am. Given that no one else had arrived during the intervening period, it was a miracle that he hadn’t given up.
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