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Why This Matters: The up and down sides of the scrambled new world order are coming into focus. The energy price war continues to lead to cuts in production, which was badly needed for climate change purposes. Big banks like JP Morgan and Citi may have a reckoning ahead since they fueled much of the pumped-up supply – they invested $2.7 trillion in those fossil fuel companies most aggressively expanding production since the Paris agreement, according to The Banking on Climate Change 2020 report out this week by a number of prominent environmental groups. Storing jet fuel in tankers at sea and allowing sleepy truck drivers to take over the highways seem like recipes for disaster that could have huge negative environmental and safety impacts. We need a whole of government approach that minimizes these risks and moves to reduce permanently oil and gas production now while it makes economic sense.
The Banks Pumping Up Oil and Gas
The report’s most disturbing finding was about the banks’ practice of aggregating financing for the 100 companies that were aggressively planning new coal, oil, and gas extraction and related infrastructure. The groups found that of the $2.7 trillion in fossil fuel finance, $975 billion went to these companies — financing for these top 100 expanders skyrocketed 40% from 2018 to 2019. At times of low prices, often oil and gas demand increases, but COVID-19 may disprove this logic.
Arctic oil and gas production has become an investment that is being eliminated by banks — but COVID-19 may also play a role in reducing production if there continue to be interruptions to transporting workers to the Arctic oil fields, all of which is good news for climate change. Similarly, slowdowns in the production of dirty oil from the Dakotas and fracking in the Permian Basin of Texas would be welcome news, as long as the government can keep production from surging again. In the “tar sands sector” according to the environmental NGO’s report “bank financing has fallen since 2017, though 2019 levels remain higher than 2016.” And in order to get rid of excess jet fuel, oil and gas companies may begin to mix it into diesel gas, which is more profitable right now, but ultimately this is another way to prop up the oil and gas market.
H/T to my brother Ted M who is keeping the supply chains intact — make sure those truckers get enough sleep!
By WW0 Staff For the United States, the post-Trump, pre-COP26 road to Glasgow has been paved with ambition and humility. In a major speech, the President’s Envoy, John Kerry, previewed the results of his climate diplomacy before heading into two weeks of intense deliberations of world leaders. Speaking at the London School of Economics — […]
Next week, the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow will draw hundreds of world leaders to Glasgow to determine the path forward five years after the Paris Climate Agreement (for a primer, read this) as new science underscores the urgency. The conference aims to squeeze countries to strengthen the commitments they’ve made towards securing global net-zero […]
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor In a report released last week, the Department of Defense (DOD) confirmed that existing risks and security challenges in the US are being made worse due to “increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change. Now, the Pentagon is […]
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