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oil drilling
Big Win in California as Big Oil Drops Effort to Drill Near Schools and Homes
"Big Oil spent tens of millions of dollars trying to fool voters," said one campaigner, "but it was no match for the groundswell of people power and community support."
Jun 27, 2024
Environmental, climate, and public health advocates on Thursday cheered what one green group called a "historic win" as a Big Oil industry group dropped a California ballot measure challenging a law banning oil drilling near homes, schools, and businesses.
The Sacramento Beereported that the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA) will withdraw its ballot measure seeking to overturn the state's ban on drilling for oil within 3,200 feet of residential, educational, and commercial buildings.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill—introduced by then-state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-80)—in September 2022.
"We just won our David vs. Goliath battle," the Protect California Communities campaign said on social media. "Big Oil officially withdrew their deceitful initiative!"
"Our law is safe and will finally take effect," the group added. "We just protected California neighborhoods from toxic oil drilling!"
CIPA chairman Jonathan Gregory issued a salty statement following the ballot measure's withdrawal.
"Supporters of the energy shutdown can make unfounded claims in the press and in paid advertisements, but they can't make those claims in court without evidence," he said, according to the Bee. "That's why we are pivoting from the referendum to a legal strategy."
However, Newsom said CIPA's move "ends harmful drilling in our communities and enforces common-sense pollution controls."
"Big Oil saw what they were up against—and they folded, again," the governor said on Thursday. "No parent in their right mind would vote to allow drilling next to daycares and playgrounds. This is a huge win for all Californians, especially the two million living within a half-mile of these operations."
Food & Water Watch California director Chirag Bhakta said in a statement that "while this is a moment to celebrate the power of people coming together to take on Big Oil, we must continue to get toxic oil drilling out of neighborhoods, as well as all fossil fuel infrastructure, which also poses a huge risk to public health and causes pollution to our water and air."
Bhakta added that Newsom must now "immediately shut down the dangerous Aliso Canyon gas storage facility which was the site of the biggest methane blowout in U.S. history almost a decade ago and is an ongoing threat to nearby residents."
Communities for a Better Environment Darryl Molina Sarmiento said that "Big Oil spent tens of millions of dollars trying to fool voters, using the profits made at the expense of community health, but it was no match for the groundswell of people power and community support we were able to unite all across California."
Food & Water Watch's Bhakta said that public opposition to repealing the law "proves once again that Californians do not want dangerous and polluting oil rigs in their backyards, near where their children go to school and play or near hospitals."
"We will not sacrifice our communities anymore," he vowed. "This victory is due to the dedication of so many, and particularly frontline communities who are experiencing the brunt of the oil industry's pollution and have been advocating for years to get dirty oil drilling out of their backyards."
Nalleli Cobo is one of those people. The 22-year-old activist—who helped found the grassroots group People Not Pozos (Spanish for wells)—is recovering from illness related to growing up alonside an oil well and has been tirelessly fighting against Big Oil's plans to drill near residential communities.
"When I was about 11, I was diagnosed with asthma. By the time I turned 19, we had shut down the drilling in our South L.A. neighborhood, but not before I was diagnosed with stage 2 reproductive cancer," Cobo explained. "I lost my ability to bear children as a result. After three surgeries, eight minor procedures, three rounds of chemotherapy, and six weeks of radiation, I was cancer-free as of two years ago, at 20."
"My experience, like that of others who live in neighborhoods polluted by oil drilling, is a constant reminder that those in power do not value our health and wellbeing," she added. "It's a signal that some communities are expendable, that our lives don't matter as much as the fossil fuel industry's profits."
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Landmark UK Supreme Court Ruling 'Slams Brakes' on New Fossil Fuel Projects
"This is a welcome step towards a safer, fairer future," said the climate campaigner who brought the legal challenge.
Jun 20, 2024
In a landmark decision that could spell doom for all new fossil fuel projects in the country, the United Kingdom's highest court ruled Thursday that local planning authorities unlawfully failed to consider the full planet-warming emissions impact when they approved a drilling initiative that was expected to yield more than 3 million tonnes of oil over two decades.
The most recent challenge to the closely watched drilling project was brought to the U.K. Supreme Court in 2023 by climate campaigner Sarah Finch, who argued that the Surrey County Council's granted permission for new oil wells at Horse Hill without taking into account future emissions from burning the fossil fuel produced at the sites—so-called "downstream" emissions.
In a 3-2 decision, the U.K.'s high court ruled that the Surrey council's approval of the Horse Hill drilling "was unlawful because the emissions that will occur when the oil produced is burnt as fuel are within the scope of the [environmental impact assessment] required by law."
"The oil and gas companies may act like business-as-usual is still an option, but it will be very hard for planning authorities to permit new fossil fuel developments."
Finch said Thursday that she is "absolutely over the moon to have won this important case."
"This is a welcome step towards a safer, fairer future," Finch continued. "The oil and gas companies may act like business-as-usual is still an option, but it will be very hard for planning authorities to permit new fossil fuel developments—in the Weald, the North Sea, or anywhere else—when their true climate impact is clear for all to see."
Friends of the Earth U.K., which backed Finch's legal challenge, called the court's ruling "a heavy blow for the fossil fuel industry," noting that the decision "could have ramifications for other proposed fossil fuel projects, such as the Whitehaven coal mine, as well as projects to extract oil from the North Sea."
Scientists have made clear that no new oil and gas projects are consistent with efforts to limit planetary warming to 1.5°C by century's end.
"If developers are now obliged to present the full climate impacts of their projects (instead of just a fraction of those impacts, as has largely happened up until now), then decision-makers may well think twice before granting them planning permission," Friends of the Earth U.K. said in a statement Thursday.
Extinction Rebellion U.K., another supporter of Finch's challenge, said Thursday's ruling effectively "slams brakes" on new fossil fuel projects in the country.
"Not only does today's Supreme Court ruling destroy [U.K. Oil and Gas'] plans to drill for up to 3.3 million tonnes of crude oil for 20 years at its Horse Hill site, near Gatwick Airport, but also has huge implications for all future fossil fuel projects in the U.K.," the organization said. "Neither the Cumbrian coal mine in Whitehaven nor the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea sought consent for their projects. Nor did they provide any information on downstream emissions in their environmental statements. Both projects are the subjects of legal challenges."
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Ecuadorians Vote on 'Monumental Referendum' to End Oil Drilling in Yasunà National Park
The vote comes after a decade of campaigning by organizers who want to protect the park's biodiversity and the tribes who live there.
Aug 20, 2023
Ecuadorian voters on Sunday headed to the polls to cast their votes in both a snap presidential election and to take what environmental justice campaigners said was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to help protect one of the world's most vital ecosystems.
Signs urging the public to vote "Sà al Yasuni" or "yes" for the Yasunà National Park in the Amazon rainforest have been plastered across the country in recent weeks, as organizers call on voters to support a referendum that would stop oil drilling in the Yasunà Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oilfield.
The 198,000-hectare park is Ecuador's largest protected area and is home to 1,130 species of trees—more than the United States and Canada combined—165 mammal species, 630 species of birds, and over 100,000 insect species per hectare.
The Indigenous Waorani, Kichwa, and Shuar people coexist in the region, as well as the uncontacted Tagaeri and Taromenan tribes.
As Indigenous rights group Survival International said in a video posted to social media on Saturday, oil drilling in the tribes' territory "poses a huge threat to their survival" as well as perpetuating an energy system that scientists have warned is heating the planet and causing dangerous sea level rise and extreme weather events.
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa began an initiative after taking office in 2007 to keep the oil in the ground in Yasunà National Park, creating a fund equal to half of the oilfield's reserves and asking other countries to pay into the fund in exchange for not drilling.
But the initiative ended in 2013 and state oil firm Petroecuador has extracted as many as 57,000 barrels of oil per day from the park since then.
The grassroots movement Yasunidos has spent a decade gathering 750,000 signatures to support the placing of the referendum on ballots and Ecuador's top electoral court ruled last year that the vote could go forward.
If the referendum is successful, said human rights group Global Justice Now, Ecuador could "become the first country to limit fossil fuel extraction through direct democracy."
"Ecuadorian campaigners are defending their local environment while standing on the frontline of the global battle to keep fossil fuels in the ground," said Izzie McIntosh, climate campaign manager for the group. "Whichever way the vote goes, they have sent a clear message to polluting multinationals: communities will not stand by while corporations profit at the expense of the Amazon, and our planet's collective well-being."
After 10 years of oil extraction in the fragile rainforest, the referendum offers Indigenous tribes and the entire country the possibility of "a different future," Hueiya Cayuiya, founder of the Waorani Women's Association of the Ecuadorian Amazon, told The Guardian.
"If we win, it will be a triumph for Ecuador," said Cahuiya. "We don't want any more contamination in our rivers, any more extraction on our land."
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