It
was a bruising day for Europe's energy sector Thursday, with the full
extent of the pain caused by low oil prices being laid bare in a series
of earnings reports.
Anglo–Dutch multinational Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA-GB)
reported a loss of $6.1 billion, compared with a gain of $5.3 billion
for the same quarter a year ago, a decrease of 70 percent. This included
a large $8.2 billion write-off due to a downward revision of its oil
and gas price outlook and also a decision to halt projects in Alaska and
Canada.
Oswald Clint, senior analyst at Bernstein, called
these impairments a "necessary evil" which would allow a "new" Shell to
emerge that could focus on natural gas and deep water drilling. James
Sparrow, a credit specialist at BNP Paribas. called it a "kitchen
sinking" exercise ahead of its merger with BG Group (@BGLFDC16J-GB).
The news didn't stop there. French major Total (FP-FR)
reported a 23 percent drop in third-quarter adjusted net income from
the same quarter last year, although CEO Patrick Pouyanne spoke of
"resilience" in the face of falling oil prices. Analysts were pleased
with the results, too. Sparrow, called the numbers "encouraging" while
Oswald noted that it had benefited from not having made any big
investments into the U.S. shale sector.
Analysis highlights the small number of
profit-driven entities that are driving us towards destruction, but can a
climate revolution from below challenge their rule?
- Jon Queally, staff writer
ChevronTexaco
was the leading emitter among investor-owned companies, causing 3.5% of
greenhouse gas emissions to date, with Exxon not far behind at 3.2%. In
third place, BP caused 2.5% of global emissions to date. (Guardian)Narrow
it down to the real power-brokers and decision-makers—the CEO's of
fossil fuel companies or the energy ministers from the largest
petro-states—says climate researcher Richard Heede, and the actual
individuals most responsible for the political world's continued refusal
to address the planetary crisis of climate change "could all fit on a
Greyhound bus or two."
In a newly compeleted study by Heede and his colleagues at the Climate Accountability Institute,
their analysis shows that a mere 90 companies, some private and some
state-owned, account for a full two-thirds of all greenhouse gas
emissions that are now driving perilous rates of global warming.
Offered in advance to the Guardian newspaper, which created an interactive representation
of the study's findings, the report comes as climate negotiators from
around the world continue talks in Warsaw, Poland this week in the
latest (what looks so far like a failed) attempt to solidify an emissions agreeement designed to stave off the worst impacts of climate change this century.
As the Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg reports:
Between them, the 90 companies on the list of top emitters produced
63% of the cumulative global emissions of industrial carbon dioxide and
methane between 1751 to 2010, amounting to about 914 gigatonne CO2
emissions, according to the research. All but seven of the 90 were energy companies producing oil, gas and coal. The remaining seven were cement manufacturers.
The list of 90 companies included 50 investor-owned firms – mainly
oil companies with widely recognised names such as Chevron, Exxon, BP ,
and Royal Dutch Shell and coal producers such as British Coal Corp,
Peabody Energy and BHP Billiton.
Some 31 of the companies that made the list were state-owned
companies such as Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco, Russia's Gazprom and
Norway's Statoil.
Nine were government run industries, producing mainly coal in
countries such as China, the former Soviet Union, North Korea and
Poland, the host of this week's talks.
Though the global public has been flooded with one scientific
research paper after another warning of the perils of not addressing the
role of carbon emissions, experts agree that the political will on the
state, national, and global level has simply not been created.
The reason for that, of course, is the stranglehold that the very profitable fossil fuel companies—whether
state-owned entities or private corporations—retain on the political
systems within which they operate. At the global level, that political
system is known as the United Nations, but so far the talks taking place
in Warsaw are seeing almost no progress on a deal. On Wednesday, the
world's poorest nation's walked out of the COP19 talks and the wealthiest nations—including the US, Canada, Australia, and the EU states—showing less and less courage despite the increasingly dire warnings from experts and scientists.
Michael Mann, a U.S. climate scientist who spoke to the Guardian
about the possible impact of the list, said he hoped it would bring
greater scrutiny to the gas, oil and coal companies who are most
responsible for past emissions because these are the same companies
poised to continue burning the vast carbon reserves still in the ground.
"What I think could be a game changer here is the potential for clearly
fingerprinting the sources of those future emissions," he said. "It
increases the accountability for fossil fuel burning. You can't burn
fossil fuels without the rest of the world knowing about it."
And Al Gore added: "This study is a crucial step forward in our
understanding of the evolution of the climate crisis. The public and
private sectors alike must do what is necessary to stop global warming.
Those who are historically responsible for polluting our atmosphere have
a clear obligation to be part of the solution."
The alternative, however—as almost zero progress, and possibly lost
ground, has been the result of the last several rounds of international
climate talks—is a global uprising from below, led by social justice
organizations, environmentalists, and civil society who are willing to
act where governments and the private sector have refused.
As Michael T. Klare, an energy expert and professor at Hampshire College, wrote earlier this week at TomDispatch:
If, as is now the case, governments across the planet back an extension of the carbon age and ever increasing reliance on “unconventional” fossil fuels
like tar sands and shale gas, we should all expect trouble. In fact,
we should expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution.
None of us can predict the future, but when it comes to a mass
rebellion against the perpetrators of global destruction, we can see a
glimmer of the coming upheaval in events of the present moment. Take a
look and you will see that the assorted environmental protests that have
long bedeviled politicians are gaining in strength and support. With
an awareness of climate change growing and as intensifying floods, fires, droughts, and storms
become an inescapable feature of daily life across the planet, more
people are joining environmental groups and engaging in increasingly
bold protest actions. Sooner or later, government leaders are likely to
face multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may, in the end, be
forced to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being swept
aside.
In fact, it is possible to imagine such a green energy revolution
erupting in one part of the world and spreading like wildfire to
others. Because climate change is going to inflict increasingly severe
harm on human populations, the impulse to rebel is only likely to gain
in strength across the planet. While circumstances may vary, the
ultimate goal of these uprisings will be to terminate the reign of
fossil fuels while emphasizing investment in and reliance upon renewable
forms of energy. And a success in any one location is bound to invite
imitation in others.
Oil, coal and gas
companies are contributing to most carbon emissions, causing climate
change and some are also funding denial campaigns. Photograph: David
Gray/Reuters
The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely
by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of
the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the
industrial age, new research suggests.
The companies range from investor-owned firms – household names such as Chevron, Exxon and BP – to state-owned and government-run firms.
The analysis, which was welcomed by the former vice-president Al Gore as a "crucial step forward" found that the vast majority of the firms were in the business of producing oil, gas or coal, found the analysis, which has been published in the journal Climatic Change.
"There
are thousands of oil, gas and coal producers in the world," climate
researcher and author Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability
Institute in Colorado said. "But the decision makers, the CEOs, or the
ministers of coal and oil if you narrow it down to just one person, they
could all fit on a Greyhound bus or two."
Half of the estimated
emissions were produced just in the past 25 years – well past the date
when governments and corporations became aware that rising greenhouse
gas emissions from the burning of coal and oil were causing dangerous climate change.
Many
of the same companies are also sitting on substantial reserves of
fossil fuel which – if they are burned – puts the world at even greater
risk of dangerous climate change.
Climate change experts said the
data set was the most ambitious effort so far to hold individual carbon
producers, rather than governments, to account.
The United Nations climate change panel, the IPCC, warned in September that at current rates the world stood within 30 years of exhausting its "carbon budget"
– the amount of carbon dioxide it could emit without going into the
danger zone above 2C warming. The former US vice-president and
environmental champion, Al Gore, said the new carbon accounting could
re-set the debate about allocating blame for the climate crisis.
Leaders
meeting in Warsaw for the UN climate talks this week clashed repeatedly
over which countries bore the burden for solving the climate crisis –
historic emitters such as America or Europe or the rising economies of
India and China.
Gore in his comments said the analysis underlined that it should not fall to governments alone to act on climate change.
"This
study is a crucial step forward in our understanding of the evolution
of the climate crisis. The public and private sectors alike must do what
is necessary to stop global warming," Gore told the Guardian. "Those
who are historically responsible for polluting our atmosphere have a
clear obligation to be part of the solution."
Between them, the 90
companies on the list of top emitters produced 63% of the cumulative
global emissions of industrial carbon dioxide and methane between 1751
to 2010, amounting to about 914 gigatonne CO2 emissions, according to
the research. All but seven of the 90 were energy companies producing oil, gas and coal. The remaining seven were cement manufacturers.
Anti-nuclear demonstrators march in Cologne, Germany, in March 2011. Photograph: Roberto Pfeil/AP
A week after the most powerful "super typhoon" ever recorded pummeled the Philippines, killing thousands in a single province, and three weeks after the northern Chinese city of Harbin suffered a devastating "airpocalypse", suffocating the city with coal-plant pollution, government leaders beware!
Although individual events like these cannot be attributed with absolute certainty to increased fossil fuel use and climate change,
they are the type of disasters that, scientists tell us, will become a
pervasive part of life on a planet being transformed by the massive
consumption of carbon-based fuels. If, as is now the case, governments
across the planet back an extension of the carbon age and ever increasing reliance on "unconventional" fossil fuels
like tar sands and shale gas, we should all expect trouble. In fact, we
should expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution.
None
of us can predict the future, but when it comes to a mass rebellion
against the perpetrators of global destruction, we can see a glimmer of
the coming upheaval in events of the present moment. Take a look and you
will see that the assorted environmental protests that have long
bedeviled politicians are gaining in strength and support. With an
awareness of climate change growing and as intensifying floods, fires, droughts, and storms
become an inescapable feature of daily life across the planet, more
people are joining environmental groups and engaging in increasingly
bold protest
actions. Sooner or later, government leaders are likely to face
multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may, in the end, be forced
to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being swept aside.
In
fact, it is possible to imagine such a green energy revolution erupting
in one part of the world and spreading like wildfire to others. Because
climate change is going to inflict increasingly severe harm on human
populations, the impulse to rebel is only likely to gain in strength
across the planet. While circumstances may vary, the ultimate goal of
these uprisings will be to terminate the reign of fossil fuels while
emphasizing investment in and reliance upon renewable forms of energy.
And a success in any one location is bound to invite imitation in
others.
A "green revolution" is unlikely
to arise from a highly structured political campaign with clearly
identified leaders. In all likelihood, it will erupt spontaneously,
after a cascade of climate-change induced disasters provokes an
outpouring of public fury. Once ignited, however, it will undoubtedly
ratchet up the pressure for governments to seek broad-ranging, systemic
transformations of their energy and climate policies. In this sense, any
such upheaval – whatever form it takes – will prove "revolutionary" by
seeking policy shifts of such magnitude as to challenge the survival of
incumbent governments or force them to enact measures with
transformative implications.
What recent episodes such as the mass environmental protests in Turkey last June, farmers and students blocking the construction of a petrochemical facility in Ningbo, China, and post-Fukushimaanti-nuclear demonstrations
tell us is that people around the world are becoming ever more
concerned about energy policy as it affects their lives and are prepared
– often on short notice – to engage in mass protests. At the same time,
governments globally, with rare exceptions, are deeply wedded to
existing energy policies. These almost invariably turn them into
targets, no matter what the original spark for mass opposition. As the
results of climate change become ever more disruptive, government
officials will find themselves repeatedly choosing between long-held
energy plans and the possibility of losing their grip on power.
A
new law suit claims some of the world’s largest oil companies –
including BP, Royal Dutch Shell, manipulated Brent Crude spot prices in
collaboration with Morgan Stanley, Vitol Group, and other energy
traders.
The plaintiffs accuse the companies of deliberately
submitting false and misleading information about Brent prices to
Platts, the energy and oil market news outlet, which is used by traders
worldwide in daily transactions, Bloomberg reports. “By
providing false or inaccurate information and engaging in false or sham
trading, defendants undermined the entire pricing structure for the
Brent Crude Oil physical and futures markets,” the plaintiffs allege.
By
fixing the North Sea oil benchmark, the oil companies and traders, not
only manipulated the oil market, but petroleum, food, and other products
that look to Brent as a guide for buying and selling across world
exchanges.
Four traders - John Devivo, Robert Michiels, Anthony
Insinga and Kevin McDonnell - filed the class act in a Manhattan court
in New York on October 4.
Other companies accused of ‘fixing’ are
Trafigura AG and Trafigura Beheer British Virgin Island, Dutch commodity
trading firms, Phibro Trading LLC, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum
Corporation, Vitol Group, a Swiss-based, Dutch-owned energy trader,
S.A., and other unnamed traders. Read More Here
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