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net zero
Big Oil Should Pay for the US to Reach Net Zero
The cost of climate action must shift from taxpayers to fossil fuel producers, in other words, to those who profit from the products that pollute the air.
May 08, 2024
The Biden administration is spending billions of taxpayer dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order for the U.S. to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050, an important goal, in the opinion of most climate scientists, for saving our planet.
As immense as this spending seems, it is only a small fraction of what will ultimately be required. If America is to achieve Net Zero without massive tax increases, the cost of climate action must shift from taxpayers to fossil fuel producers; in other words, to those who profit from the products that pollute the air. Government regulation is essential to make this happen.
ExxonMobil’s CEO recently said “the people who are generating the emissions need to be aware of and pay the price for that.” Unfortunately, he was pointing to consumers, not producers. These fossil fuel producers are actively avoiding paying the price for cleaning up these emissions.
Fossil fuel companies make tremendous profits off of products that cause GHG emissions and should be the ones to take responsibility for these emissions.
Let’s consider an example. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $6 billion to support 33 projects aimed at reducing emissions. One of the largest awards, $332 million, was for an ExxonMobil project to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at its Baytown, Texas, chemical plant by 2.5 million metric tons per year—a mere 0.04% of U.S. emissions. This award came after ExxonMobil warned the project might not continue due to unsatisfactory government incentives.
ExxonMobil’s net profit in 2023 was over $36 billion, more than 100 times the government award. Why does it need taxpayer funds to decarbonize? Can’t ExxonMobil reduce its emissions at its own expense as a cost of doing business? Fossil fuel companies make tremendous profits off of products that cause GHG emissions and should be the ones to take responsibility for these emissions. But the reality is they won’t unless they are required to do so.
With the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the government took the “carrot” approach: Give companies an incentive to act and hope that they’ll do the right thing. Some companies have been very complimentary of the IRA because it allows them to decarbonize at taxpayer expense. Their only complaint is that they want even larger incentives so they can make greater profits on their decarbonization investments. These companies now see the atmospheric carbon problems as opportunities, but they still want the U.S. taxpayer to pay for their new decarbonization business ventures.
It is time for the IRA’s carrots to be followed by a regulatory stick. If oil companies want to continue to produce fossil fuels, we should phase in a requirement that they address the emissions that result from their production and use. Companies that reduce emissions most cheaply will be more profitable than those who are less efficient, and this will accelerate the deployment of climate solutions. Oil companies will, of course, pass some of those costs on to their customers. This will prompt consumers to seek alternatives to fossil fuels and to use less—exactly what needs to happen if we are to achieve Net Zero emissions.
This regulatory approach is nothing new. When society needed gasoline to be produced without toxic lead, it was required by regulation and oil companies did it. The same thing happened when low sulfur fuels were required to reduce pollution. Companies spent billions to produce better fuels, and we have cleaner air and fewer deaths as a result. Similar regulations should, and must, be used to drive decarbonization.
This approach—requiring oil companies to decarbonize—should have supporters on both sides of the political aisle. It both improves the environment and reduces taxes—a win-win. The Big Oil lobby will be strongly opposed, just like they were to previous regulations. But in the end, they’ll do what needs to be done.
Oil companies like to talk about the and equation: Meeting society’s energy needs and reducing emissions. But there’s one more requirement they prefer not to discuss: doing it at their own expense. If they won’t do these three things at once, fossil fuel companies need to go the way of the dinosaurs. Our grandchildren will see their logos in museums and will be amazed that these giants were once so powerful that they were allowed to put our planet at risk.
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'Dangerous and Desperate': Sunak's Net-Zero Flip Condemned by Left, Right, and Center
"Sunak's U-turn today will be devastating for the people of the U.K. and for the planet we call home," warned one Scottish Green. "It's nothing short of evil."
Sep 20, 2023
Critics across the political spectrum—from Conservative members of Parliament and corporations to Greens and climate campaigners—reacted with anger and resolve Wednesday following the announcement by U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that his Tory government would retreat from some of its key net-zero commitments.
Speaking Wednesday at the Downing Street Press Briefing Room in London, Sunak said his government is still committed to reaching net-zero by 2050, but in a "more proportionate way" that would bring a "greener planet and a more prosperous future."
The rollback will reportedly include delaying a ban on the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles from 2030 to 2035, pushing back the phaseout of gas boilers, scrapping energy efficiency targets for some homes, dropping recycling plans, and canceling a planned air travel tax.
"This is a U-turn that will leave the Tories facing in the opposite direction of almost everyone, and finally end their hopes of reelection."
"No one can deny climate change is happening," Sunak said, adding that the county needs "sensible green leadership" instead of false choices that "never go beyond a slogan."
However, Conservative peer Lord Zac Goldsmith—who resigned his ministerial post earlier this summer due to what he called Sunak's climate "apathy"—called the prime minister's reversal "a moment of shame."
"His short stint as PM will be remembered as the moment the U.K. turned its back on the world and on future generations," he added.
Shadow Climate Secretary Ed Miliband led Labour condemnation of the reversal, which he called "a complete farce from a Tory government that literally does not know what they are doing day to day."
Brighton Pavilion Green MP Caroline Lucas slammed what she called Sunak's "coordinated, calculated, and catastrophic rollback."
"What this all reveals is that Sunak really doesn't seem to care about the climate in the slightest—it's little more than an afterthought," Lucas wrote in a Guardian opinion piece published Wednesday.
Sunak must call a general election by January 2025, and his Tories are trailing the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls amid persistently high inflation, slow economic growth, and rising inequality.
"If Sunak mistakenly thinks the climate is merely a political device to draw dividing lines between his party and Labour, he will fail on his own terms," wrote Lucas. "All it will do is draw an ever-greater divide between him and the people he seeks to govern."
Climate campaigners roundly condemned Sunak's decision.
"The government needs to double down now, not U-turn," Kennedy Walker, a U.K. organizer with the climate action group 350.org, said in a statement. "We have the opportunity to show what a transition to a greener economy that works for people and the planet can look like; we need to hold leadership to account to make sure it happens and they follow through on their own promises."
Riffing on the government's "long-term decisions for a brighter future" slogan, Extinction Rebellion U.K. wrote on the social media site X: "Short-term decisions for a shitter future. Remember, this government took £3.5 million in donations from Big Oil and other industries before licensing new gas and oil."
Many companies including automaker Ford and energy giant E.ON joined in criticism of the rollback.
"Our business needs three things from the U.K. government: ambition, commitment, and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three," Ford U.K. chair Lisa Brankin said Wednesday. "We need the policy focus trained on bolstering the EV market in the short term and supporting consumers while headwinds are strong: infrastructure remains immature, tariffs loom, and cost-of-living is high."
Some critics noted that Sunak's announcement came on the same day the leaders of many nations—but not Britain or the world's two top carbon polluters, China and the United States—gathered in New York for the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit.
"We're in a climate emergency. The deadly impacts of climate change are here now and we have to act urgently," Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan—the only U.K. speaker at the summit—toldThe Guardian Wednesday. "We have seen record high temperatures in London earlier this month and the hottest ever July. Over the last two years, we have experienced unprecedented wildfires and flash floods, destroying homes and livelihoods."
"This government's response flies in the face of common sense and shows they are climate delayers," Khan added. "It beggars belief that not only are they watering down vital commitments, but they are also passing up the opportunity to create green jobs, wealth, and lower energy bills—as well as failing to give investors the certainty they need to boost the green economy."
Sunak's reversal also infuriated many people in Scotland.
"Rishi Sunak has blood on his hands," National Union of Students Scotland president and Scottish Young Greens co-convener Ellie Gomersall toldThe National. "His excuse? It's too costly. Well then all the more kudos to the Scottish government who are still moving forward with net-zero policies like low-emission zones, phasing out gas boilers, cheaper public transport, all the while on a budget severely restrained by the confines of devolution."
"And of course when the Scottish government does try to implement simple yet effective measures like a deposit return scheme, Westminster comes along and blocks it," she added. "Sunak's U-turn today will be devastating for the people of the U.K. and for the planet we call home. It's nothing short of evil."
Alistair Heather, a Scottish writer and TV presenter, told The National that he was "almost pleased" by Sunak's announcement.
"This is a U-turn that will leave the Tories facing in the opposite direction of almost everyone, and finally end their hopes of reelection," he explained. "For mainstream voters, who understand that a clear, urgent movement of travel towards a green future is the best chance we have of mitigating the worst effects of the climate collapse, the Tories have made themselves completely unelectable. Good... Fuck the Tories. Mon the independence."
"With the Left AWOL, our species is being quick-marched to extinction."
The outrage was felt far beyond U.K. shores.
"At a time when the U.K. should be providing global leadership in transitioning off fossil fuels, especially in recognition of the impact its historical emissions have had in bringing about the climate crisis, the U.K. government is considering backtracking on already insufficient commitments," 350.org Europe regional director Nicolò Wojewoda said in a statement.
Yanis Varoufakis, a former Greek finance minister who heads the left-wing MeRA25 party, wrote on X that "Sunak's U-turn is a reflection of the total Europe-wide collapse of the market-based, neoliberal consensus on how to tackle the climate crisis. It marks the center‐right's new path."
"And with the Left AWOL," he added, "our species is being quick-marched to extinction."
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Study Finds Carbon Offset Schemes 'Significantly Overestimating' Deforestation Claims
"These carbon credits are essentially predicting whether someone will chop down a tree, and selling that prediction," said one study author. "If you exaggerate or get it wrong, intentionally or not, you are selling hot air."
Aug 24, 2023
Most carbon offset schemes significantly overestimate their impact on reducing deforestation, with many of the carbon credits purchased by polluting corporations amounting to little more than "hot air," according to a researcher behind a study released Thursday that could portend billions of dollars in losses for speculators.
"Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) projects are intended to decrease carbon emissions from forests to offset other carbon emissions and are often claimed as credits to be used in calculating carbon emission budgets," explains the study, which was published in the journal Science.
However, according to the study:
We examined the effects of 26 such project sites in six countries on three continents using synthetic control methods for causal inference. We found that most projects have not significantly reduced deforestation. For projects that did, reductions were substantially lower than claimed...
Methodologies used to construct deforestation baselines for carbon offset interventions need urgent revisions to correctly attribute reduced deforestation to the projects, thus maintaining both incentives for forest conservation and the integrity of global carbon accounting.
"Carbon credits provide major polluters with some semblance of climate credentials. Yet we can see that claims of saving vast swathes of forest from the chainsaw to balance emissions are overblown," study co-author Andreas Kontoleon, from the University of Cambridge's Department of Land Economy, said in a statement.
"These carbon credits are essentially predicting whether someone will chop down a tree, and selling that prediction," he added. "If you exaggerate or get it wrong, intentionally or not, you are selling hot air."
Kontoleon added that overestimations of forest preservation have driven an increase in the number of carbon credits on the market, resulting in artificial price suppression.
"Potential buyers benefit from consistently low prices created by the flood of credits," he said. "It means that companies can tick their net-zero box at the lowest possible cost."
This could mean that carbon speculators stand to lose billions of dollars in the future as offsets become stranded assets.
"It's currently a buyer's market and buyers are, rightly, prioritizing quality. There are over a billion tons of issued but not retired credits in the market—this suggests lots of credits can be written off, and there will remain a large supply for buyers to tap into," Anton Root, head of research at AlliedOffsets, toldThe Guardian Thursday.
"A correction like that could help to orient the market toward fundamental supply-demand dynamics, which we don't currently tend to see, and drive up the price for credits that are deemed to be above the quality threshold," he added.
The new research follows other scientific research and journalistic investigations, including a January study by The Guardian, Die Zeit, and SourceMaterial that concluded that over 90% of the rainforest carbon offsets sold by Verra, the nonprofit organization that sets the world's leading sustainability standard, "are largely worthless and could make global heating worse."
While some scientists argue that CO2 extraction, either via natural or technological means, is needed in order to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, opponents call the technology a "false climate solution."
Green groups including Extinction Rebellion and Food & Water Watch have for years warned against carbon capture and storage, which critics call a "scam" and "greenwashing."
"Carbon offset markets are widely discredited," Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh said earlier this year. "Their only benefit lies in enriching the middlemen charged with selling the lie."
Despite this, the Biden administration is pushing ahead with a plan to invest $2.5 billion in a pair of major carbon capture and storage projects, which it claims will "significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation and hard-to-abate industrial operations" as part of the "effort critical to addressing the climate crisis and meeting the president's goal of a net-zero emissions economy by 2050."
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