September, 22 2016, 01:15pm EDT
Fossil Fuel Expansion Has Reached the Sky's Limit: Report
The embedded carbon emissions from the oil, gas, and coal in currently operating fields and mines, if they run to the end of their projected lifetimes, will take us just beyond the Paris Agreement's 2?C warming limit, and even further from the goal of 1.5?C, a new study has found.
The study scientifically grounds the growing movement to keep carbon in the ground by stopping all new fossil fuel infrastructure and industry expansion.
The embedded carbon emissions from the oil, gas, and coal in currently operating fields and mines, if they run to the end of their projected lifetimes, will take us just beyond the Paris Agreement's 2?C warming limit, and even further from the goal of 1.5?C, a new study has found.
The study scientifically grounds the growing movement to keep carbon in the ground by stopping all new fossil fuel infrastructure and industry expansion.
The analysis, "The Sky's Limit," was released today by Oil Change International, the day after world leaders from over 30 countries gathered in New York to ratifiy the Paris Agreement, speeding up its now-certain entry into force.
It focuses on the potential carbon emissions from developed reserves - where the wells are already drilled, the pits dug, and the pipelines, processing facilities, railways, and export terminals constructed. The report uses industry data from Rystad Energy, a leading oil and gas consultancy, and compares it against carbon budgets derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Developed reserves of oil and gas alone, even if coal were phased out immediately, would take the world beyond 1.5degC.
"If the world is serious about achieving the goals agreed in Paris, governments have to stop the expansion of the fossil fuel industry," said Stephen Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International. "The industry has enough carbon in the pipeline - today - to break through the sky's limit."
Report author Greg Muttitt, also of Oil Change International, noted that while previous studies on carbon budgets have focused on the burning of fossil fuels, this analysis focused on what these budgets mean for the supply of fossil fuels in the first place. It is the first time a study has looked at current fossil fuel extraction operations and made the logical conclusions based on climate science.
"Once an extraction operation is underway, it creates an incentive to continue so as to recoup investment and create profit, ensuring the product - the fossil fuels - are extracted and burned. These incentives are powerful, and the industry will do whatever it takes to protect their investments and keep drilling," he said. "This is how carbon gets "locked-in"
"It is not too late. It's still possible to go another way." said Muttitt. "With a properly managed decline of the industry, we can replace the fossil fuels with renewables quickly enough to meet our energy needs and climate goals. Perhaps more importantly, we can do so in a way that protects workers, communities and the climate."
The first, and most important step, the report notes, is to stop any new development. Projected investment in new fields, mines, and transportation infrastructure such as pipelines over the next 20 years is $14 trillion -a lethal capital injection.
The report lists examples some of the biggest projects around the world that cannot go ahead - in the US, Canada, Australia, India, Russia, Qatar and Iran.
Governments would need to make hard choices about the phase-out of existing projects and, the report recommends, this should start in the developed world.
"There are only three possibilities here," said Muttitt. "We can manage the decline of our existing fields, shifting to clean energy and redeploying workers. Or we continue to develop new reserves that then have to be shut down suddenly, stranding assets, costing investors, and causing havoc in fossil fuel extraction dependent communities. Or we just carry on as we are - and wreak economic, ecological and human catastrophe on the world."
"Continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry is now quite clearly and quantifiably climate denial" said Kretzmann.
"Subsidizing or permitting or profiting off of the expansion of the fossil fuel industry is now clearly the moral equivalent of selling cigarettes in a cancer ward."
The report can be read at https://priceofoil.org/2016/09/22/the-skys-limit-report/.
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Additional quotes from partner organizations in support of the report:
"This report shows that the fossil fuel industry's business plan is a threat to a livable planet and the lives of people already facing the impacts of climate change," said May Boeve, Executive Director of 350.org. "Our institutions must heed this warning and divest from this industry. And if our leaders are serious about keeping their promises made in the Paris Agreement, they now have to say 'no' to every new fossil fuel infrastructure project that comes across their desk. That carbon must be kept in the ground." (Press contact: Dani Heffernan, dani@350.org, +1-305-992-1544)
"The Paris Agreement was like a breakthrough at a rehab centre. World leaders admitted for the first time they had a fossil fuel addiction problem and would clean up their act. The question now is will they stick to this new path or will they fail at the first difficult decision," said Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid's Senior Climate Advisor. "Like a junkie coming off drugs they need to actually wean themselves off the damaging substance. Their attitude to fossil fuel exploration will reveal if they were telling the truth with their Paris Agreement promises." (Press contact: Joe Ware, JWare@christian-aid.org, +44 (0)207 523 2418)
"The evidence is clear: to avoid catastrophic climate change, we need our political and financial leaders to stop any further fossil fuel development and start scaling back. This means no new pipelines, no new federal leases, and certainly no financing of new fossil fuel infrastructure," said Amanda Starbuck, Climate & Energy Program Director, Rainforest Action Network. (
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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Another State Department Official Resigns Over Biden Gaza Policy
"I wasn't able to really do my job anymore," said Annelle Sheline. "Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible."
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Saying her job at a State Department office that advocates for human rights in the Middle East has become "impossible" as the Biden administration continues to back Israel's assault on civilians in Gaza, foreign affairs officer Annelle Sheline resigned from her position on Wednesday in protest of President Joe Biden's policy in the region.
Sheline noted in an interview with The Washington Post that quitting her job in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor was not something she took lightly, with "a daughter and a mortgage"—but said her day-to-day work on human rights had become ineffectual "as long as the U.S. continues to send a steady stream of weapons to Israel."
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Sheline is just the latest official to resign in protest of Biden's approach to Israel and Gaza.
In October Josh Paul resigned from his position as director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, where he oversaw weapons transfers to U.S. allies.
Paul told the Post that Sheline's decision "speaks volumes about the Biden administration's disregard for the laws, policies and basic humanity of American foreign policy that the bureau exists to advance."
A policy adviser in the Education Department, Tariq Habash, also stepped down from his role in January, saying he could no longer be "quietly complicit" in the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
The State Department's internal dissent channel has also been used by numerous officials to voice outrage over the Biden administration's continued defense of Israel's actions.
Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, called Sheline's resignation "courageous."
Feds United for Peace, a group of government workers across nearly two dozen federal agencies which organized a daylong fast in January to protest the U.S.-backed slaughter of Palestinians, expressed solidarity with Sheline.
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A Gallup survey released Wednesday shows that U.S. public support for Israel's military assault on Gaza has plummeted since November, with the decline particularly sharp among Democratic voters whom President Joe Biden will need to turn out to win reelection against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
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"The crosstabs are even more striking—nearly two-thirds of people under 54, people of color, and women disapprove of the military action in Gaza," Sam Rosenthal, political director of the progressive advocacy group RootsAction, told Common Dreams in response to the new poll. "That is effectively the Democratic Party's base."
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Overall, Gallup found that 55% of the American public—including 60% of Independents and 30% of Republicans—disapproves of Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip, up from 45% in November. Just 36% of the U.S. public approves, down from 50% four months ago.
"Biden is risking his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now."
Observers
noted that Gallup's new poll was conducted after the Israeli military's February 29 massacre of Palestinians seeking food aid. Since October, according to one human rights monitor, Israeli forces have killed more than 560 people waiting for humanitarian aid, the delivery of which Israel's government has intentionally hindered—fueling the spread of famine across the territory.
The Biden administration has backed Israel's assault from the beginning, providing the Netanyahu government with billions of dollars worth of weapons and diplomatic cover despite widespread and growing protests at home and abroad. Gallup's survey found that 74% of U.S. adults say they are following developments in Gaza "closely."
Political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote on social media that "Biden's policy of continued support for Israel's war on Gaza is in line with the views of the right-wing Republicans," noting that 64% of GOP voters still approve of the Israeli assault—down slightly from 71% in November.
"Just to emphasize how extreme his position is and out of line with his voters," he added, "more Republicans disapprove of the war than Democrats who approve."
Growing Democratic opposition to Israel's military action in Gaza has fueled grassroots campaigns across the country urging voters to mark "uncommitted" on their Democratic primary ballots to pressure Biden to change course ahead of the general election against Trump, who has voiced support for Israel's devastating assault on Gaza.
"Uncommitted" campaigns won 11 Democratic National Convention (DNC) delegates in Minnesota and two in both Michigan and Washington state.
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Rosenthal of RootsAction told Common Dreams on Wednesday that the U.S. decision to abstain and allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a cease-fire resolution earlier this week was "a step in the right direction, and a clear indication that domestic pressure from campaigns like Listen to Michigan and other uncommitted voting efforts is working."
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"The Comstock Act must be repealed," said the Missouri Democrat.
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Rep. Cori Bush on Tuesday called for the repeal of a long-obsolete law that anti-abortion activists, lawmakers, and judges have worked to revive as part of their nationwide assault on reproductive rights.
"The Comstock Act must be repealed," Bush (D-Mo.) wrote in a social media post on Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors aiming to curtail access to mifepristone—a medication used in more than 60% of U.S. abortions.
"Enacted in 1873, it is a zombie statute, a dead law that the far-right is trying to reanimate," Bush warned. "The anti-abortion movement wants to weaponize the Comstock Act as a quick route to a nationwide medication abortion ban. Not on our watch."
Bush's office said she was the first member of Congress to demand the law's repeal since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the summer of 2022.
The Comstock Act, which hasn't been applied in a century and was repeatedly narrowed following its enactment, prohibits the mailing of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that "may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion." Legal experts have described the dormant law as the "most significant national threat to reproductive rights."
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The Biden Justice Department has argued that the Comstock Act "does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully."
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In 2023, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, invoked the Comstock Act in a decision suspending the Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of mifepristone. In 2021, the FDA said it would allow patients to receive abortion medication by mail—which Kacsmaryk claimed the Comstock Act "plainly forecloses."
That case, which has massive implications for abortion rights nationwide, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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