![]() The year 2020 arrived amid tens of billions of dollars in new fiscal write-downs and losses for oil drillers and fracking firms. In that time, the U.S. smashed global records for the production of oil and gas - two of the three fossil fuels most responsible for the ongoing climate crisis.Īnd at the same time, the last decade’s rush to drill continued to prove spectacularly unprofitable. Over the past decade, as the climate crisis worsened, hundreds of drilling rigs dotted both the Permian Basin’s desert expanses in Texas and the Marcellus Shale’s Appalachian hills, grinding through rock to reach oil and gas trapped in brittle shale deep underground. Global carbon emissions had leveled off in the middle of the last decade, but began to climb again in 2017, breaking records anew each year since. ![]() Today’s climate impacts have been shaped heavily by actions taken during the last 10 years, particularly in the U.S., where the climate benefits of coal power plant retirements were undermined by the rise of natural gas. A University of Sydney professor estimated the number of animals killed likely tops one billion. The new year started amid devastating wildfires, tied to the worst droughts Australia has experienced in hundreds of years, which encircled much of the continent. So far, 29 people have been reported dead. Thank you.As 2020 begins, the impacts of climate change have become increasingly clear around the world. ![]() There are days when it seems just absurd to me that we’re having to do this, in 2017, given all the scientific evidence.īut what gives me strength is knowing that we’re part of a growing global movement, working alongside Friends of the Earth groups in 75 countries, to speed the transition from the fossil fuel age to the clean, green renewable age.Īnd you are a vital part of that movement. It’s also why we’ve opposed tax breaks being offered to fracking companies and oil companies in the North Sea, and why we’ve campaigned hard against plans for a brand new open cast coal mine at Druridge Bay, on the beautiful Northumberland coast. We need to be winding down our existing oil and gas infrastructure and moving to clean renewable energy as fast as we can - not creating a whole new fossil fuel industry that will lock us in to dirty energy for decades to come. The clear and present danger that climate change represents is also why Friends of the Earth is working with communities to do all we can to stop fracking in the UK. So why on earth would a rich country like Norway want to look for yet more of the stuff, especially in one of its most beautiful and sensitive stretches of coastline? Scientists estimate that of the fossil fuels that have already been discovered, we need to leave at least 80% in the ground if we are to have any chance of avoiding the worst excesses of climate change. That’s why I was in the Arctic Circle in August 2017, with Friends of the Earth Norway, to lend our support to their campaign to stop plans for new oil and gas drilling in the beautiful Lofoten Islands. It’s high time that our politicians started treating climate change as the clear and present danger it really is. The appalling devastation caused in the Caribbean by super-charged Hurricane Irma, in Texas by Hurricane Harvey, and the thousands of people that have lost their lives and livelihoods because of unprecedented monsoon flooding in South Asia, are just a taste of things to come in a warmer world. The very real and immediate threat that climate change poses to hundreds of millions of people around the world is something we know about because of the dedicated work of tens of thousands of scientists.Īnd yet, curiously, it invites a very different response. How would British newspapers react if our government not only maintained diplomatic and economic relations with that foreign power, but rolled out the red carpet, and offered it tax breaks and favoured trading status with the UK? There would be uproar, they would call for the government to be ousted immediately and probably for Churchill to be brought back from the grave. We would expect immediate action, within days, and wouldn’t tolerate government attention on anything else (including Brexit) until the threat had been removed. Would we be happy for our governments to come up with a plan that offered a 50/50 chance of slightly reducing the threat by 2050? No, we most certainly would not. How would we, the public, respond? How would we expect our politicians to act? Imagine the media storm if that report was leaked to the press. What if intelligence agencies suggested this same foreign power was also planning to attack other less well-off countries, putting hundreds of millions of lives at risk?
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