Yes, Governance! One of the ESGs.
WOW! So much is already happening, TODAY, to phase them out.*
– Solutions through the law
“The rules of our world are laws, and they can be changed. Laws can restrict or they can enable. What matters is what they serve. Many of the laws in our world serve property – they are based on ownership. But imagine a law that has a higher moral authority… a law that puts people and planet first. Imagine a law that starts from first “do no harm”, that stops this dangerous game and takes us to a place of safety….” Polly Higgins, 2015
“We need to change the rules.”
Greta Thunberg, 2019
In this post:
The TOTALLY GREEDY EYE of fossil fuel
YOUR VOTE is their “buy” is their VOTE!
YOUR “BUY” IS YOUR VOTE! – Do The Math! 2012
Actions we humans can achieve through the law
The Year to stop listening to their misinformation
The year we must stop oil&gas at COP 27!
…Remember a list at the bottom of other posts about WASTE to energy
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
The TOTALLY GREEDY EYE of fossil fuel
4 August – Together, four of the biggest energy firms – Exxon, Chevron, Shell and TotalEnergies – earned nearly $51bn in the most recent quarter – almost double what they made in the same period last year.
they are out to get the last dollar they can before we manage to phase them out
You know that This blog, wasterrush.info, is looking for the encouraging things that we humans can do to harmonize with planet Earth. Among all of the problems, the one that stands out and never seems to stop is fossil fuel. Here, too, there are already ways to stop them! NOW!
What are governance – national administrations trying to do?
UN chief Guterres slams oil and gas firms’ ‘grotesque greed’
4 August – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for oil and gas companies to face special taxes.
… “I urge all governments to tax these excessive profits, and use the funds to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times.”
Last month, the UK approved a 25% ‘windfall tax’ on energy firms, a one-off levy the government says will raise some £25bn to help offset household energy bills, which have spiked. Some other countries, such as Italy, have imposed similar measures.
Encouraging Government Actions………...If they can truly manage to quit russian oil and overcome the forecasted problems during the winter of 2022-2023, the EU will have truly started the whole world “to phase out fossil fuel”.
YOUR VOTE is their “buy” is their VOTE!
- South Africa: justice confirms seismic exploration ban for Shell September 2022 – The decision granting “an exploration right (…) for the search for oil and gas in the exploration areas of Transkei and Algoa is reviewed and canceled”, the court in Makhanda (also called Grahamstown) in the province of the Eastern Cape, in a decision of which AFP had a copy.
“The claimant communities argue that they have duties and obligations regarding the sea and other common resources such as land and forests,” the court said.
The exploration project involved the sending of a powerful shock wave every ten seconds, in an area of 6,000 km2, by boats equipped with air cannons. - Hawaii closes last coal-fired power plant in bid to fight climate change 1 September, 2022 – The last coal shipment arrived in the islands at the end of July, and the AES Corporation coal plant closed Thursday after 30 years in operation. The facility produced up to one-fifth of the electricity on Oahu — the most populous island in a state of nearly 1.5 million people.
In 2020, Hawaii’s Legislature passed a law banning the use of coal for energy production at the start of 2023.
The AES coal plant closure means Hawaii joins 10 other states with no major coal-fired power facilities, according to data from Global Energy Monitor. Rhode Island and Vermont never had any coal-fired power plants. - EU countries reach deal on emergency gas cuts for this winter 26 July, 2022 – EU countries have agreed on an emergency regulation to curb their gas use this winter, as Europe prepares for a winter of uncertain supplies from Russia.
“This was not a Mission Impossible! Ministers have reached a political agreement on gas demand reduction ahead of the upcoming winter,” the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency, wrote in a tweet. - Netherlands to ban fossil heating from 2026, make heat pumps mandatory The Dutch government intends to ban new fossil fuel-centric heating system installations as of 2026, while introducing the mandatory use of heat pumps or connections to heat networks. Much like plans in neighbouring Germany to mandate at least hybrid heat pumps as early as 2024, the Dutch government is betting on the efficacy of so-called hybrid heat pumps, which run on electricity for most of the year. Using a hybrid heat pump “leads to an average 60% saving on natural gas consumption,” the government said in a press release.
- ACROSS THE GLOBE, THOSE HARMED BY CLIMATE CHANGE ARE TURNING TO COURTS
July 29, 2022 — In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines in 2013, a group of organizations and individuals in the country and elsewhere petitioned the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines to investigate whether fossil fuel companies violate or threaten to violate human rights by contributing to climate change. At least 6,300 people died in that storm, and 29,000 were injured.
In early May of this year, the commission released its report. It found that nearly 50 major fossil fuel companies should be held accountable for the human rights impacts of their carbon-producing activities and alter their practices to reduce climate risk.
…Some observers claim it provides a legal tool for holding fossil fuel companies accountable for climate impacts in the Philippines. In theory, it could be an important development for climate litigation around the world. - New Jersey sues oil companies for deceiving public about climate change New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said internal industry documents show Exxon Mobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips all hid their knowledge that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change.
- Italy’s Giorgia Meloni aims to make climate change a right-wing issue Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party signed a declaration by right-wing parties to respond to the challenges of a warming planet. The declaration says: “We must collectively do much more to combat the threat of climate change,” and adds: “We need to harness the expertise and creativity of businesses and entrepreneurs.”
- Science offers basis for national climate damage claims -study July 12 (Reuters) – A scientific basis exists to calculate how much one country’s carbon emissions have damaged the economy of another, a study said on Tuesday of a development it billed as a potential game-changer for climate litigation.
These secret “investor courts” need to be eliminated
Secret Investor “Courts” Violate Rule of Law
but Help Protect Oil Profits
One way the “law” is used by industry to protect its profits is through the deployment of secret investor arbitration proceedings where the public cannot attend. This investor arbitration process — enshrined in most bilateral investment treaties — allows private lawyers to act as “judges” to issue rulings in favor of private companies that force sovereign nations (think Ecuador) to pay billions of dollars to compensate industry for “lost profits” due to legislative actions that address the climate crisis. This is outrageous on every level; Chevron used this procedure to sue the government of Ecuador by claiming our pollution case against the company violated various private contractual rights. This forced Ecuador to spend at least $100 million on legal fees — monies that could have been spent on health care or education or for a clean-up. These secret investor “courts” need to be eliminated.
For a deeper dive on the same subject, this is an article I and two colleagues wrote years ago about how Chevron has used the secret courts to delay a result for the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador harmed by pollution.
Steven Donziger
YOUR “BUY” IS YOUR VOTE!
Do The Math!
Think about it!
This movie/video was produced 10 years ago…….
Do The Math – The Movie
At least we can say we have stayed below 565,000,000,000 ppm. I took these numbers from Statista. We know there are other sources.
2012 – 34,970,000,000 ~350,000,000,000 ppm 350.org
2013 – 35,280,000,000 ~353,000,000,000 ppm
2014 – 35,350,000,000 ~353,000,000,000 ppm
2015 – 35,500,000,000 ~355,000,000,000 ppm
2016 – 35.450,000,000 ~354,000,000,000 ppm
2017 – 35,930,000,000 ~360,000,000,000 ppm
2018 – 36.650,000,000 ~370,000,000,000 ppm
2019 – 36,700,000,000 ~370,000,000,000 ppm
2020 – 34.810,000,000 ~350,000,000,000 ppm
2021 – 36.400,000,000 ~360,000,000,000 ppm
cop 26 said it was: 414,000,000,000 ppm
they said in 2012:
The fossil fuel industry is killing us.
They have five times the amount of coal, gas and oil that is safe to burn — and they are planning on burning it all. Left to their own devices, they’ll push us past the brink of cataclysmic disaster — life as we know it.
Do The Math follows the climate crusader Bill McKibben as he works with a rising global movement in a David-vs-Goliath fight to change the terrifying math of the climate crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsIfokifwSo Do The Math – The Movie
Take a look at some of the Actions
we humans can achieve
through the law.
*the time has come for the
Fossil Fuel NON-PROLIFERATION Treaty
This may be the way to really phase them out at COP 27!
According to the latest IPCC report, coal, oil and gas are responsible for 86% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade.
Phasing out fossil fuel production, and fast-tracking progress towards safer and more cost-effective alternatives, will require unprecedented international cooperation in three main areas – non-proliferation, global disarmament and a peaceful, just transition.
This idea is gaining REAL momentum!
The @LancetCountdown Report shows that the health impacts of #ClimateChange are increasing. This is a sobering reminder of how much further we still have to go. @WHO supports the call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. We must break our addiction to fossil fuels. https://t.co/9EpHSvilHS pic.twitter.com/ClWGtLay9k
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 26, 2022
The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Climate change, like nuclear weapons, is a major global threat.
The main cause of the climate emergency is fossil fuels — responsible for 86% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade.
Phasing out fossil fuels in a manner that is not only fast, but also fair, will require unprecedented international cooperation.
Thousands of academics, scientists, parliamentarians, cities and civil society leaders are calling for a new global treaty to manage a global just transition away from fossil fuels.
Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty today! – HERE. <<<<
What if all the people on the planet signed this petition.
YOUR VOTE is their “buy” is their VOTE!
The first Latin American capital to endorse the call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Lima, the capital of Peru and one of the largest capitals in Latin America, has just unanimously passed a motion calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, supported by all 39 councillors. This is a great first step towards opening debates around the need to leave fossil fuels in the ground and initiate a just and community-led energy transition.
THE FOSSIL FUEL NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY
we must cut fossil fuel interests out of our politics worldwide
Big oil and gas buying influence in Brussels
For decades, fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists have denied science, and have delayed, weakened, and sabotaged climate action. They made billions in profits, while heating the planet and destroying communities.
To tackle the climate emergency, and ensure that climate policy is conducted entirely in the public interest, we must cut fossil fuel interests out of politics, similar to existing restrictions on the tobacco industry. Before it’s too late.
The US Environmental Production Agency has “raised the stakes”:
Ecocide is a word to describe what is happening to our planet; the mass damage and destruction of the natural living world. It literally means “killing one’s home”.
And right now, in most of the world, no-one is held responsible.
It’s time to change the rules. It’s time to protect our home.
We are working, together with a growing global network of lawyers, diplomats, and across all sectors of civil society, towards making ecocide an international crime.
Harnessing law and legally protecting our planet is a vital climate solution to permanently protect ecosystems, keystone species, biodiversity and will ultimate help stablize planet Earth.
https://grounded.org/legal-protection-of-earth-action-toolkit/
As a Citizen of planet Earth, there are many things you could do now: ACT NOW!
such as…………………….
Write to Elected Representatives
Dear [elected representative ]
Support making ECOCIDE an international crime
Mass damage and destruction of ecosystems (ECOCIDE), committed over decades and permitted by law, has led to global climate and ecological crisis.
Treaties, agreements and civil lawsuits have all failed to prevent this.
It is time to change the rules.
Amending the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to include ECOCIDE as a CRIME – alongside genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity – can provide a simple, effective deterrent for those in positions of responsibility, enforceable within existing criminal justice systems.
Please convey my request to the Minister of Justice, Minister of Foreign Affairs [or equivalents in your country] and the Prime Minister/President [as appropriate] for the government to publicly declare support for such an amendment, in the knowledge that many countries must stand together to put this law in place for the long-term protection of all life on Earth.
As your constituent, I look forward to your confirmation in writing that you have done this on my behalf.
Sincerely.
[your name]
[your full address – which you must include even if it is an email you are sending]
If you are a lawyer, whether practising or academic, Stop Ecocide International would be grateful if you would add your name and email to their list. You will receive email updates. Your support is also important in another way: the more the legal world gets behind “establishing ecocide crime”, the more powerful the momentum to do so will become.
Our planet is experiencing an unprecedented rate of environmental destruction, which is threatening human health and intensifying human exposure to climate risks. Harnessing law and legally protecting our planet is a vital climate solution to permanently protect ecosystems, keystone species and biodiversity.
This has to be the year!
The Year to stop listening to their misinformation:
- The Fossil Fuel Industry Does not Create as Many Jobs as it Says It Does
Over the years, API has released reports claiming that the domestic fracking industry creates somewhere between 2.5 million to 11 million jobs, both directly and indirectly. These numbers — or versions of them — are floated in political debates and in the media, but they are significantly out of step with other estimates, including the federal government’s labor reports….and Fracking is a bad Methane contribution to GHGs.
… Fossil fuel companies are shedding workers, pay is stagnant, and the drilling companies are pulling more oil and gas out of the ground while registering astonishing profits. - Fossil Fuel Jobs Will Disappear, So Now What?
May 2021 – The battle is over; fossil fuels will never catch up. Because renewable power is drawn from the wind and sun, its “fuel cost” is effectively zero. Renewables also provide the only true form of energy independence — no cartel can corner the sun.
The accelerating transformation in energy gives us unprecedented opportunities to create millions of jobs in solar and wind power, energy storage, energy efficiency, and updating our grid. - Subverting Climate Science in the Classroom ? Oil & gas representatives influence the standards for courses and textbooks, from kindergarten to 12th grade……
In a drab hearing room in Austin, Tex., members of the State Board of Education, seated at small desks arranged in a broad, socially distanced circle, debated whether eighth grade science students should be required to “describe efforts to mitigate climate change.” One board member, a longtime public school science teacher, argued in favor of the proposed new requirement. Another (an in-house attorney for Shell Oil Company) argued to kill it. The attorney won. In the end, the board voted to require that eighth grade science students “describe the carbon cycle” instead. …
…For the first time, the state board considered requiring that students learn something about human-caused climate change. That requirement came under tense dispute between industry representatives interested in encouraging positive goodwill about fossil fuels and education advocates who think students should learn the science underlying the climate crisis unfolding around them.
This has to be the year!
The year with no oil&gas at COP 27?
No More Fossil Fuel lobbyists’ threats at COP 27!
?How did the 500 oil/gas lobbyists at COP 26 manage to threaten these countries, to make them forget their population and land destroyed by the climate change?
So many reasons for Fossil Free COPs:
The largest sector group at COP
Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Have Larger Presence at COP26 Than Any Single Country: Report
November 21 – “COP26 is being sold as “the place to raise ambition”, but it’s crawling with fossil fuel lobbyists whose only ambition is to stay in business.” says Pascoe Sabido, a campaigner for Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)—one of the groups behind the new research.
That means the oil and gas industry—the principal driver of the crisis that COP26 was ostensibly convened to tackle—unofficially has a bigger delegation at the conference than Brazil, which has the largest national presence at COP26 with 479 representatives.
“For example,” the analysis notes, “one in eight delegates from Russia’s three hundred-strong delegation were from the fossil fuel industry while lobbyists were also included in Canada’s and Brazil’s official delegations. In total, 27 different official country delegations included fossil fuel lobbyists.”
They hide their representation, subtly concealed……
Oil industry bigwigs given platform at COP26 despite organisers’ claims
BP & Chevron get a platform and the industry gets access to influential decision-makers
November 2021 – Last month, it was revealed that oil companies including BP were “being excluded” from official roles at COP26, with organizers casting doubt on the firms’ claimed ambitions to eliminate carbon emissions.
At the time, the exclusion was seen as a victory for environmental campaigners, who have long called for major polluters to be excluded from UN climate conferences. However, a program of events obtained by openDemocracy reveals that representatives of Big Oil have been allowed into the conference under the umbrella of a trade association that has a booth at the heart of COP26.
Need for rule to exclude oil&gas lobbyists..….to avoid
“conflict of interest” for decision makers. Not Fair!
Flooding the zone: Hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists granted access to COP26
Together with our partners we believe these findings show why we need a conflict of interest policy for UN climate negotiations that clearly excludes organizations that have vested interests in greenhouse gases.
Ultimately, if we want to put the needs of people and the planet over polluters’ profits, we need a fossil free politics.
Oil&Gas pressure countries to water down the event’s needs……
Oil and gas avoided censure in Glasgow for the 26th time. Let’s not make it 27
Investor and state-owned oil companies in the G20 find common cause in watering down climate ambition; we need to confront their influence!
“We need to change the rules.”
Greta Thunberg, 2019
We should be so much farther along with the phase out of fossil fuel.
It is not impossible!
And COP 27…………hoping for Miracles!
Governments, please
phase out fossil fuel at COP 27
Other posts on the subject of WASTE to Energy
Anaerobic Digestion In Full Swing – #1 Waste To Energy?
CNG, LNG, RNG Fuelling Stations – #2 Waste To Energy
#3 Municipal Solid Waste – MSW To BioFuel? Yes!
Finally In The Mood To Phase Out Fossil Fuel? Environment
Finally In The Mood To Phase Out Fossil Fuel? People-Civic
Finally In The Mood To Phase Out Fossil Fuel? – Governance
The “Relief” Of Phasing Out Fossil Fuel! …Now!
ALL Islands: Just Go Zero – NOW! – Like Tilos
We CAN Deal With The #1 Mistake: Fossil Fuel – Today
Look To Garbage Dump Sites For The Energy We Need! Sure Fire!
Other approaches to waste to energy in these posts
Useful Green WASTE Business Ideas That Scale To Any Size
Harvesting Waste Ideas. Waste Rushes? NOW!
Climate Retrofits On Land Or At Sea
Shipping’s Carbon Footprint And Your Small Business >> Your Vote
Industrial Zone – Closed-Loop Networking
Cellulosic Ethanol – One Of Many DSM Sustainability Projects
what needs to be cleaned
Too Much Methane !
The Greenhouse Gases List …..A Re-Review
cleaning up the mess
Can We, Are We Pulling In The Excess CO₂ ?
Fuel From Air? – Capture CO₂
Carbon Dioxide – Who Else Has Ideas To Pull It DOWN And OUT?
Urban Mining for clean energy
Urban Mining ! – More Important Than Ever
Critical Minerals & Rare Elements! ….. COLOSSAL WASTE RUSH