Climate Legacy: Report Offers Stark Reminder Why Fossil Fuel Industry Is So Intent To Avoid Accountability For Pollution

If the governments of the world get serious about tackling climate change and adopt aggressive limits on global warming emissions, many fossil fuel companies’ could see their assets become stranded, forcing them to fundamentally change their business models or go out of business altogether. But there’s another reason why those companies are so desperate to […]

Immigration and Terrorism Will Increase With Climate Change, Says Military Leader

Climate change will lead to terrorism and increased immigration into the UK as millions are displaced by rising seas, a senior military figure warned as the Lima climate talks entered their final hours. Displaced and marginalized climate refugees will be forced to abandon their homes as vast areas of countries, such as Bangladesh, are lost due […]

Calls to Ban Bomb Trains Ramp Up While Communities Await New Regulations

Earthjustice has challenged the Department of Transportation’s denial of a petition by Sierra Club and Forest Ethics to ban the transportation of Bakken crude oil in DOT-111 tank cars. “Most of the explosive crude oil on U.S. rails is moving in tanker cars that are almost guaranteed to fail in an accident,” explained Patti Goldman […]

Revealed: How Big Oil Got Expedited Permitting for Fracking on Public Lands Into the Defense Bill

The U.S. Senate has voted 89-11 to approve the Defense Authorization Act of 2015, following the December 4 U.S. House of Representatives’ 300-119 up-vote and now awaits President Barack Obama’s signature. The 1,616-page piece of pork barrel legislation contains a provision — among other controversial measures — to streamline permitting for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) on U.S. public lands overseen by the […]

Climate Negotiations Should Stop Focusing On “Burden Sharing” And Start Focusing On Sustainable Development: Report

While a key element of negotiations aimed at achieving an international agreement for combating climate change has understandably been fair treatment of all parties, there has been too narrow a focus on “burden-sharing” and “atmospheric rights,” according to a new report that suggests this approach has led to unnecessary divisiveness and is likely to yield […]

California Communities Fighting Back Against Prospect Of 25-Fold Crude-By-Rail Increase

This is a guest post by Tara Lohan that originally appeared on Faces Of Fracking, a project of the CEL Climate Lab in partnership with Grist that was launched to capture the stories of concerned residents who live on the front lines of fracking. Ed Ruszel’s workday is a soundtrack of whirling, banging, screeching — […]

How Free Market 'Baptist' Fred Smith Sold Out to the Big Oil 'Bootleggers’

In the second part of our Fred Smith story – part of our history series – DeSmog UK investigates his prohibition era-inspired solution to attacking climate science. Fred Smith, founder of the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), was frustrated that oil companies were almost universally failing to recognise the climate agenda as a threat. But he soon […]

Old Fracking Wells Could be ‘Super-Emitters’ of Greenhouse Gases

Three million abandoned fracking wells in the US are thought to be potentially leaking substantial amounts of poisonous methane gas into the atmosphere, a new study by Princeton University reveals. “The research indicates that this is a source of methane that should not be ignored,” said Michael Celia, Professor of both Environmental Studies and Civil and […]

Lima COP20 Climate Summit Marked By Protests, Publicity Stunts and PR Promises

An estimated 15,000 people marched through the streets of Lima yesterday in the People’s Climate March, demanding a shift to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. Earlier in the day, a group of 100 children delivered a petition signed by 2.2 million people to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and […]

John Kerry Slams Climate Deniers at COP 20, Emphasizes 97% Consensus, Mum on KXL

“What happens if the climate skeptics are wrong? Catastrophe.”  Those were the words of Secretary of State John Kerry here in Lima today as he addressed the COP 20 climate talks on the need to foster global action to address climate change.  Secretary Kerry also emphasized the 97 percent scientific consensus on manmade global warming, calling […]