If the Keystone XL Pipeline is Dead, South Dakota Regulators Didn’t Get the Memo

TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline is not as dead as some of its adversaries claimed after President Obama denied the presidential permit for the border-crossing section of the tar sands pipeline.  The company’s plans for the South Dakota part of the pipeline are still in play after the South Dakota Public Utility Commission (PUC) denied a motion to throw out […]

COP21, Coal and Climate Deniers – DeSmog UK’s December Recap Has it All

Most of our December was spent reporting on the unprecedented global climate deal agreed in Paris after decades of UN climate summits. Does the deal contain everything everyone wants? No. Will people still suffer from climate-related catastrophes? Yes. But at least it’s a step in the right direction. Paris Climate Talks The opening of the Paris climate summit saw […]

Holiday Melancholy In Bayou Corne, Louisiana, Home of Giant Sinkhole Caused by An Industrial Accident

Hand-painted standing alligators holding signs that read “Noel” on Tim Brown’s lawn in Bayou Corne, LA, offer holiday cheer in an area where most of his neighbors moved away.  Bayou Corne, 77 miles west of New Orleans, has joined the growing list of communities destroyed by industrial accidents. Once known as a sportsman’s paradise, Bayou Corne is now famous for a […]

Coal Mining's Financial Failures: Two Thirds of World's Production Now Unprofitable

Sixty-five percent of the world’s coal production is unprofitable at today’s prices, a new research report by Wood Mackenzie, a commercial intelligence company often cited by investment analysts and the coal industry itself, concluded. Both major types of coal — the coking coal used for making steel and the thermal coal burned in coal-fired electrical […]

Over 60 Groups Call for the Fossil Fuel Industry to Pay for their Climate Damage

More than 60 organisations from around the world are calling for a carbon levy on fossil fuel extraction to help pay for the climate change impacts on the most vulnerable countries. The Carbon Levy Project declaration argues that fossil fuel companies are causing approximately 70 per cent of the climate change experienced today. As a result, these […]

ExxonMobil, Peabody Coal Lobbying for Bill Preventing Climate Change Accounting in US Trade Deals

The day before global leaders and diplomats passed a climate change deal in Paris at the United Nations climate summit, the U.S. House of Representatives — in a 256-158 vote — authorized the final text of a bill that has a provision preventing climate change to be accounted for in all U.S. trade deals going forward. That bill, the […]

Senate Passed Bill Expediting Fossil Fuel Extraction on Native American Land Two Days Before Paris Agreement

Indigenous peoples’ rights nearly did not make it into the global deal signed at the United Nations COP21 climate summit in Paris, serving as one of the more controversial sticking points in the road toward the signing of the Paris Agreement. Eventually, though, the Paris Agreement came to include five mentions of the importance of […]

Lifting The Crude Oil Export Ban Isn’t Big Oil’s Only Christmas Gift

This is a guest post by Lukas Ross from Friends of the Earth. The champagne corks could be heard from the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday night, as Paul Ryan announced that Big Oil’s number one priority would indeed make it into a year-end bargain on taxes and spending. The lifting of the crude oil export ban, […]

Federal Court Gives Blessing to Covertly Approved Enbridge Cross-Border Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion

A federal court has ruled that the Enbridge Alberta Clipper (Line 67) cross-border tar sands pipeline expansion project, permitted covertly and behind closed doors by the Obama Administration, got its greenlight in a legal manner.  The ruling — made by Michael J. Davis, a President Bill Clinton-appointee — comes just over a year after several environmental groups brought a […]

"Bait and Switch": Pennsylvania Sues Driller and Pipeline Company Over Deceptive Deals

Pennsylvania’s beleaguered top prosecutor has filed a civil action against two of the nation’s largest oil and gas companies, Chesapeake Energy and pipeline company Williams Partners LP, alleging that the companies defrauded over 4,000 property owners out of the royalties owed for shale oil and gas produced from their land. “This alleged conduct amounts to a […]