US congressional hearing released 226 pages of e-mails and documents from Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP - and deserves so much more airtime: they are full of gems showing how they're pretending they're in an energy transition while in fact they want to sell more & gas forever
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BP's internal documents show how carbon capture and storage (CCS) is, for them, a PR tool to “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond”
2/n
Shell is at it too: internal email discussing carbon capture and storage warns executives "to be careful to not talk about CCUS as prolonging the life of oil, gas or fossil fuels writ large”
Because "prolonging" is exactly what it's about, it's best not to talk about it
3/n
Shell also disparages its very own “Sky scenario” to deliver net-zero by emphasizing internally that it's “not a Shell business plan” and has “nothing to do with our business plans”
It doesn't stop there of course
4/n
Shell really doesn't care: its internal guidance says “Please do not give the impression that Shell is willing to reduce emissions to levels that do not make business sense”
It doesn't matter what the consequences are: they couldn't be clearer that they just don't care
5/n
Shell's own people think they are "gaslighting" us. After a Tweet asking the public what they would do to reduce emissions, a Shell exec explained: “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves”
6/n
Also: “be cagey about project specifics” (internal Shell talking points on carbon capture and storage)
Of course: carbon capture and storage is a fossil fuel con
7/n
My favorite: Exxon spent $68m advertising algae-based biofuels even though Exxon's own notes say this is “still decades away from the scale we need”
Exxon spent $300m on algae research (4X the ad spend), vs. $391b in capex on oil & gas
That's greenwashing on steroids
8/n
There are so many examples, here's 1 more: Exxon scrubbed a statement about a speech at a private conference to delete a reference to a plan to increase production in the Permian basin by “1000% within 5 years”
Oil & gas expansion plans were massive, but buried
9/n
It's hard to read the congressional reports and evidence without concluding that the oil & gas industry is beyond reform
It's impossible to believe anything they say, and everything they do is about ensuring more and more fossil fuels are used, and forever
10/n
This won't change without legislating new oil & gas out first; pricing their environmental externalities and making them pay for these; many more climate lawsuits in every part of the world; and ultimately prosecutions - all driven by citizen climate action at scale
11/n
Here's are the 226 pages of selected e-mails and memos released by Congress; and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform memo
I've been following the development of the "Global Registry of Fossil Fuels" (1st database of emissions from production and reserves)
It's now here and it's awesome: we can transparently hold fossil fuel powers accountable for their contribution to fueling the #ClimateCrisis
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It shows that Big Oil want to fry us all: their oil & gas reserves - all of which they want to extract and sell- would yield 3.5 trillion tons of emissions, over 7 times the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C and more than all emissions produced since the industrial revolution
2/n
The Registry is innovative and trailblazing. Did you know for example that the Paris Agreement does not even mention fossil fuel production, despite the fact that such fuels account for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions?
3/n
Just finished reading "Speed & Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now" by @johndoerr
I think you should read it too: it provides a framework to guide and calibrate individual or corporate action on climate through 10 objectives and 55 specific results
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Objective 1: Electrify transport (=reduce 8 gigatons of transportation emissions to 2Gt) is broken down into 6 key results
Objective 2: Decarbonize grid (=reduce 24 gigatons of global electricity and heating emissions to 3Gt) is broken down into 7 results
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Objective 3: Fix Food (=reduce 9 gigatons of agricultural emissions to 2Gt) is broken down into 5 key results
Objective 4: Protect Nature (=go from 6 gigatons of emissions to -1Gt) is broken down into 3 key results
3/n
Ground-breaking Oxford University paper (which had a soft launch earlier but now is in scientific journal Joule) deserves enormous air time
It overturns the common thinking that decarbonizing will be hugely expensive. It’s not – in fact it saves us $5-15 TRILLION
THREAD
To quote from its conclusion: "A greener, healthier, and safer global energy system is also likely to be cheaper. Updating expectations to better align with historical evidence could dramatically accelerate progress to decarbonize energy systems around the world"
2/4
here's a link to my thread last year summarizing an earlier version
Yet another new study says Carbon capture and storage is not new, does not work as a climate solution and is a tool used by oil & gas companies to deceive and obfuscate: 72% of the (little) CO2 captured is anyway reinjected into oil fields to push more oil out of the ground
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Fundamental problem: IEA Net Zero 2050 report clearly says that there must be no new oil & gas to reach net zero by 2050 and avert the catastrophic consequences of climate change
Therefore, any new oil and gas development should not get a green light, with or without CCS
2/n
In any case, CCS does not work: The power sector has not had a single successful carbon capture and storage project: Lots announced, 2 failed, and 1 was mothballed
3/n
In short: The “Alliance to End Plastic Waste”, backed by 65 companies including Exxon and Shell, is doing an amazing job at, well, not doing anything about ending plastic waste
It's what greenwashing on steroids looks like
THREAD
The Alliance boasts 65 companies from the plastic supply chain; starting with Big Oil (e.g. ExxonMobil, Shell), the Chemical Giants (e.g. BASF, Dow), the plastic container and packaging companies (e.g. Berry, Sealed Air) and the consumer companies (e.g. PepsiCo, P&G)
2/n
The Alliance set a ridiculously negligible recycling target …
"initiative backed by Coca-Cola, Unilever and Danone to recycle plastic waste choking Ghana better at deflecting blame and avoiding regulation than actually recycling"
For emphasis: a Bloomberg investigation in Ghana revealed that the amount of actual recycling happening in the country was shockingly low: less than 0.1%
2/n
The entire plastic industry is manipulative in the extreme. Plastic’s building blocks, polymers, are in 99% of cases made from coal, gas and crude oil. It’s a very comfortable word, however, not least because advertising campaigns over decades have extolled its virtues
3/n