We've been pushing President Biden, in particular, stop approving new fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency. But our work got a big and unexpected boost from a recent UN Science report.
The report is called the "global stocktake" and it's scientists best an assessment of where countries are in terms of meeting the emissions pledges they made under the 2015 Paris agreement. As usual, the UN scientists found that we’re not doing nearly enough, in the US or around the world, to cut global warming pollution. But the report also demanded governments enact "transformations across all sectors and contexts, including scaling up renewable energy while phasing out all unabated fossil fuels."
That's a big deal, not only because UN Scientist are usually a little more circumspect than that, but because the global stocktake is the basis for the upcoming UN climate ambition summit in New York, and the international climate talks at the end of this year in Dubai.
President Biden is on his way to New York City next week for a big climate summit, and experts say the inclusion of anti-fossil fuel language in the global stocktake report could galvanize the action we need. One world leader, Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom, has already been forced out of next week’s climate talks for vowing to "max out" oil and gas leasing. Will President Biden be the first leader of a major oil and gas producing country to declare the end of the era of fossil fuels?
Fighting against us are the biggest fossil fuel companies. And you might be surprised to learn than some of the biggest are not the US oil companies we're used to hearing about. They're state owned or affiliated fossil fuel companies from Europe, China, the Middle East, and even South America.
For example, Eni — the Italian oil company — was the third biggest oil and gas developer of 2023, behind only QatarEnergy, the national oil company of Qatar, and Petrobras, the state-owned Brazilian oil company. Eni is not well known in the US, but they are one of the worst, according to Oil Change International's Big Oil Reality Check 2023.
State-affiliated oil companies are also a big threat to human rights and the right to free speech. Big fossil fuel companies have maintained profitable relationships with Russia despite sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. And Eni recently launched a SLAPP lawsuit against our allies in Italy like Greenpeace.
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