June, 28 2022, 11:59am EDT
![Oil Change International](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012638/origin.png)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nicole Rodel, nicole@priceofoil.org
Laurie van der burg, laurie@priceofoil.org
CSOs Condemn G7 Leaders for Caving in to Gas Industry and Weakening Pledge to End International Public Finance for Fossil Fuels
New G7 statement must not jeopardize full shift of USD 33B away from fossil fuels to climate and development solutions.
WASHINGTON
Today, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other G7 leaders watered down a commitment made in May by their energy, climate and environment ministers to end international public finance for fossil fuels by the end of this year, drawing a swift rebuke from climate and development campaigners. Civil society leaders had been urging the G7, and specifically Germany and Japan, to stand by the ministerial commitment and fully redirect their fossil fuel finance to clean energy and energy efficiency solutions that are best positioned to deliver on energy security, development, and climate goals.
Six out of seven G7 members had already adopted a near-identical commitment to shift public finance at the 2021 UN climate conference. The ministerial commitment was notable for adding Japan. This is significant as Japan is the second largest provider of international public finance for fossil fuels, pouring $11 billion into dirty overseas fossil fuel projects each year.
Today's G7 leaders' statement adds new loopholes to the commitment and says that "with a view to accelerating the phase out of our dependency on Russian energy ... investment in [LNG] is necessary" and that "publicly supported investment in the gas sector can be appropriate as a temporary response". Soon after the G7 ministerials, signals already emerged of countries backsliding on their commitment. Japan claimed it could continue financing upstream oil and gas projects despite the G7 pledge, and Germany's Chancellor Scholz stated that Germany wants to "intensively" pursue gas projects in Senegal -- a stance of particular concern as they are this year's G7 host.
Campaigners flag that next to undermining climate and development goals, investments in new gas infrastructure do not provide a viable solution to rapidly reducing Russian fossil fuel imports as they take years to build and do not support energy security in the long run. This also means that they do not provide an effective temporary response. Today's statement risks jeopardizing the opportunity to shift at least USD 33 billion a year in influential fossil fuel support from the G7 governments. However, CSOs will stand ready to hold the G7 accountable and ensure they do not derail efforts to end public finance for fossil fuels and shift it to clean energy with new investments in gas.
In response, experts at Oil Change International and partner organizations issue the following statement:
- Laurie van der Burg, Co-lead Global Public Finance Campaign, Oil Change International, said:"Today the G7 under the leadership of Chancellor Scholz has prioritized filling the pockets of the fossil gas industry over protecting peoples' lives. The G7 leaders' weakening the ministerial pledge to end public finance for fossil fuels by the end of this year cannot be allowed to turn into a huge missed opportunity to shift $33 billion a year to real solutions. Investing in new gas infrastructure is not a viable strategy to reduce Russian fossil fuel imports -- these projects take years to build and do not support energy security in the long run. Renewable energy and efficiency solutions can be deployed faster, better serve development and energy access needs, and do not come with the stranded assets and financial stability risks of fossil gas. The G7 caving in to fossil fuel interests is a bad look for Germany and must not derail parallel efforts to implement a near-identical commitment to end international public finance for fossil fuels adopted by 39 countries and institutions at the UN climate conference last year. We cannot afford this kind of backsliding. There are lives on the line and we will hold countries accountable."
- Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, said: "We are not surprised at the move by the G7 to invest in dirty and to serve the interest of the dirty fossil fuel industry instead of investing in clean renewable energy sources. Leaders of the G7 countries have been the main agents for polluting corporations, and they have worked together to scuttle climate negotiations, enthrone futile voluntary emissions reduction systems, promote false climate solutions, encourage land grabs, and expose vulnerable nations to extreme harms. History must hold these leaders accountable for acting to set Africa and other vulnerable regions on fire, destroy resilience through holding back climate finance and generally dithering, and offloading a catastrophic future for the youths and upcoming generations."
- Ayumi Fukakusa, Climate and Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Japan, said:"Japan's stubborn addiction to fossil fuels is undermining the urgent action we need for climate and energy security. This is just the latest example of Japan blocking climate action at the G7 and other international fora. As next year's G7 host, Japan must strengthen its commitment to phase out oil and gas finance and implement it with integrity in order to protect our planet."
- Svitlana Romanko, Stand With Ukraine coordinator, said:"Yet, world leaders still allow billions for Russian oil and gas to flow into Putin's bloody hands. An embargo on gold imports from Russia instead of a full and immediate embargo on Russian oil and gas and strict secondary sanctions is reluctantly insufficient. The weak political willpower of G7 to end their fossil fuel addiction has a deadly toll in Ukraine. In the last 3 days Russia has fired more than 60 missiles on Ukrainian cities, hitting residential buildings and malls and the number of victims is unimaginable. And it's not just about us, Ukrainians. This is urgent and necessary to make sure that Russian gas and oil reserves become permanently unrecoverable, stranded and cannot fuel more wars. We call on G7 leaders to speed up the investments into renewable energy, stop funding fossil fuel expansion and finally put public money where it needs to be - in a peaceful, prosperous and clean energy future for all."
- Collin Rees, United States Program Manager at Oil Change International, said:"This G7 declaration is an egregious betrayal of President Joe Biden's climate commitments. He came into office with promises of bold action and renewed U.S. climate leadership. So far, we've seen a disappointing lack of tangible progress, and this backtracking from the administration's recent pledge to help the world phase out fossil finance is simply unacceptable. Climate leadership means saying 'no' to fossil fuel colonialism and shifting rapidly to renewable energy for all."
- Alexandra Goritz, Policy Advisor, Germanwatch, said: "It is a blow to German climate leadership that Chancellor Scholz wanted to water down the Glasgow commitment and promote new gas fields abroad. Thus, attention was diverted away from the prospecting climate partnerships with India, Indonesia, Senegal, and Vietnam that can have transformational potential. However, the G7 text should not be considered as a free pass for gas investments. If at all, it is an exemption to the crucial Glasgow statement. What matters now is the real investment choices the G7 will make over the next months."
- Johannes Schroeten, Policy Advisor at E3G,said: "Chancellor Scholz' attempt to carve out large exemptions from the Glasgow statement on phasing out international public fossil finance has been averted - but only just. The integrity of the policy stands, but we need urgent clarification of timelines and investment criteria, beyond the empty notion of hydrogen-readiness. The G7 wasted their opportunity to accelerate the end of international fossil fuel public finance."
- Simone Ogno, Finance and Climate campaigner at Recommon(Italy), said:
"Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi's words are outrageous. It's more than ten years that short-term needs prevail over long-term ones, and the result is unconditional power to the fossil fuel industry, with all the direct and indirect consequences that this entails: environmental devastation, global warming, social inequalities, armed conflicts and even wars, as the one un Ukraine right now. Increasing investments in oil and gas expansion leads us straight to a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, and those who will pay at first the consequences will mainly be those same frontline communities already affected by fossil fuel colonialism. While in Europe, Italy included, gas prices stay high and more and more people are forced to choose between a meal and paying their energy bills. At the end of the day all of us will pay for this irresponsible decision to depend on fossil fuels." - Paul Cook, Head of Advocacy at Tearfund, said: "People in poverty around the world will pay the highest price for this backtrack by some of the wealthiest countries. The G7 could have ushered in a clean energy future but instead continue to add fuel to the climate emergency. Communities on the frontline of the climate crisis need decisive action, not weakened promises. There is no room for new fossil fuels in a safer, fairer future."
- Lucile Dufour, Senior Policy Advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, said: "G7 governments have watered down their collective commitment to end international public support for fossil fuels, by extending the list of potential exemptions for gas projects. But investing in new long-lived gas infrastructure isn't an effective response to tackle the short term energy supply shortage, and isn't well suited to improve energy access in low- and middle-income countries. Accelerating the energy transition requires a full shift of international public finance towards cost-competitive and already available clean energy solutions. The G7 must urgently get back on track and live up to its promise to stop funding fossils by the end of 2022."
- Tasneem Essop, Executive Director, Climate Action Network, said: "The G7 countries have once again proved that they are morally bankrupt and have no real intention to solve the climate crisis and take responsibility for this crisis caused by their disproportionate use and relentless support for fossil fuels. It is simply selfish for high emitters to continue to squander the remaining, and rapidly diminishing, carbon budget beyond their fair share with their use of fossil fuels. Our collective energy security and peace is underpinned by a just and equitable transition to renewable energy and scaled up finance to those impacted by climate devastation and loss and damage."
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
Jul 26, 2024
The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
slammed the bill as a "xenophobic attack" meant to silence "Black voices, brown voices, LBGTQIA+ voices, [and] young voices."
Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
"What we've found is that these measures have a disproportionate impact on voters with disabilities, both Black and white," NAACP Legal Defense Fund senior policy counsel Jared Evans
toldNola.com earlier this week.
"It's clear that their goal is to make it harder to vote, harder for specific communities to vote especially," Evans added. "What they don't realize is that these laws hurt white voters, too."
In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
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"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
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"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
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"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
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Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
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