Despite promising climate action, oil and gas giants double down on drilling / by Oil Change International

_{^{climateandcapitalism.com/}}

All announced energy transition policies are ‘insufficient’ or ‘grossly insufficient’

_{Reposted from Climate & Capitalism}

[Oil Change International] Big oil and gas companies’ climate pledges and plans are dangerously inadequate, and put the world on a path to climate chaos and widespread harm to communities. The case for keeping oil, gas, and coal in the ground has never been stronger, but big oil and gas companies continue to resist and block a fast and fair transition to clean, renewable energy.

Oil Change International’s Big Oil Reality Check report assesses the climate pledges and plans of eight international oil and gas companies – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Eni, Equinor, and ConocoPhillips – against 10 criteria representing the bare minimum for aligning with the Paris Agreement to limit global heating below 1.5°C.

Key Findings:

The Big Oil Reality Check report finds that these oil majors fail to align with international agreements to phase out fossil fuels and to limit global temperature rise to 1.5ºC. Every company is “Grossly Insufficient” or “Insufficient” on a majority of criteria. and three of them (Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil) are “Grossly Insufficient” – the lowest rating – on all criteria.

Combined, these 8 companies’ current oil and gas extraction plans are consistent with more than 2.4°C of global temperature rise,(1) likely leading to global devastation. These companies alone are on track to use 30% of our remaining carbon budget to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

Of the 8 analyzed companies, 6 have explicit goals to increase oil and gas production. Even those without such plans are advancing new fossil fuel projects and selling polluting assets rather than shutting them down, masking their actions as contributing to an energy transition while perpetuating climate pollution.

None of the 8 companies have set comprehensive targets to ensure their total emissions decline rapidly and consistently, starting now. Every company intends to rely on carbon capture and storage (CCS), offsets, and/or other methods that delay and distract from ending fossil fuels, and prolong the health and community safety impacts of dirty energy.

All of the companies fail to meet basic criteria for just transition plans for workers and communities where they operate. All of them fail to meet basic criteria on upholding human rights.

While last year the world committed to “transition away from fossil fuels” at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the report reveals that oil and gas companies are moving in the opposite direction, by doubling down on drilling that unleashes damage to our climate and fuel disasters by poisoning us, our air, land, and water.

If oil and gas companies were serious about the climate crisis, the first way they’d show it would be ceasing to add new fuel to the fire – meaning no new exploration, expansion, or production of fossil fuels. Instead, 6 of the 8 companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, and Eni) have explicit goals to increase oil and gas production.

Even those companies (BP and Shell) that don’t have explicit plans to increase total production are putting forward new fossil fuel projects for approval, while framing themselves as contributing to the energy transition with a different strategy: selling polluting assets to other companies who will almost certainly make sure those fossil fuels are burned. Selling polluting assets can make it look like BP and Shell are heading in a better direction, but unless oil and gas fields are retired, the reality is this strategy protects their bottom lines while climate pollution continues.

The Big Oil Reality Check report reveals that none of the companies we analyzed have set comprehensive targets to ensure their total emissions decline rapidly and consistently, starting now. Instead of phasing out production as rapidly as possible, every company intends to rely on carbon capture and storage (CCS), offsets, and/or other methods that delay and distract from ending fossil fuels, and prolong the health and community safety impacts of dirty energy. All are lobbying against climate action, greenwashing, and otherwise maneuvering to undermine the energy transition.

While many companies have co-opted the language of ‘just transition’ from labor and climate justice movements in recent years, all the companies fail to meet basic criteria for just transition plans for workers and communities where they operate. Five companies score “Grossly Insufficient” and three score “Insufficient.”

On upholding human rights, five score “Grossly Insufficient” and three score “Insufficient”. These companies’ track record when it comes to protecting human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights is deeply concerning. Each is experiencing resistance from frontline communities to their projects based on human rights, health, and/or safety concerns.

An Oil Change International investigation in March 2024 revealed that ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Shell, and Eni are all complicit in facilitating the supply of crude oil to Israel. This is in the context of the Israeli military’s ongoing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and mounting evidence of war crimes. Human rights are non-negotiable and these companies’ apparent disregard for it is yet another reason they should not be trusted to take climate action.

_{Oil Change International (OCI) is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy. Rooted in community solidarity and principled policy analysis, we work within larger movements to build a fossil free future.}

Why more than 60 indigenous nations stand against the Line 5 oil pipeline / by Anita Hofschneider

_{^{Indigenous-led march against Line 5 | popularresistance.org}}

_{Reposted from the People’s World}

The Line 5 oil pipeline that snakes through Wisconsin and Michigan won a key permit this month: pending federal studies and approvals, Canada-based Enbridge Energy will build a new section of pipeline and tunnel underneath the Great Lakes despite widespread Indigenous opposition. You may not have heard of Line 5, but over the next few years, the controversy surrounding the 645-mile pipeline is expected to intensify.

The 70-year-old pipeline stretches from Superior, Wisconsin, through Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario, transporting up to 540,000 gallons of oil and natural gas liquids per day. It’s part of a network of more than 3,000 miles of pipelines that the company operates throughout the U.S. and Canada, including the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota where hundreds of opponents were arrested or cited in 2021 for protesting construction, including citizens and members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and White Earth Band of Ojibwe.

Now, Enbridge Energy, with the support of the Canadian government, is seeking approvals to build a new $500 million conduit to replace an underwater section of Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac, while facing lawsuits backed by dozens of Indigenous nations as well as the state of Michigan.

A key concern is the aging pipeline’s risk to the Great Lakes, which represent more than a fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. Environmental concerns are so great that three years ago, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered Enbridge’s dual pipelines that run for 4 miles at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac to cease operations.

“The state is revoking the easement for violation of the public trust doctrine, given the unreasonable risk that continued operation of the dual pipelines poses to the Great Lakes,” the governor’s office said at the time.

The move came just a year after the Bad River Band tribal nation filed a lawsuit against Enbridge regarding another, separate section of Line 5 in Wisconsin located across 12 miles of the Bad River reservation. The pipeline had been installed in 1953 and, at the time, had received easements to do so from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

But the easements expired, and in a court filing, the tribal nation said the company “has continued to operate the pipeline as if it has an indefinite entitlement to do so,” despite federal law that bans the renewal of expired right-of-way permits on Indian land and would require Enbridge to obtain new permits and approvals from the Band.

The Bad River won a key victory last summer when a Wisconsin judge ruled that the company must shut down the portion of its pipeline that trespasses on the reservation by 2026.

Enbridge has resisted calls to cease Line 5 operations. Instead, the company contends that it has the right to continue operating there, citing a 1992 agreement with the Band, and is planning to reroute the pipeline while appealing the Wisconsin judge’s decision. The company also argues that building a new pipeline 100 feet below the lake bed through the Straits of Mackinac will virtually eliminate the chance of a spill.

“Line 5 poses little risk to natural and cultural resources, nor does it endanger the way of life of Indigenous communities,” company spokesperson Ryan Duffy said. “Line 5 is operated safely and placing the line in a tunnel well below the lake bed at the Straits of Mackinac will only serve to make a safe pipeline safer.”

To that end, Enbridge successfully appeared before the Michigan Public Service Commission, the state’s top energy regulator, this month and got permission to build a new concrete tunnel beneath the channel connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The commission cited the need for the light crude oil and natural gas liquids that the pipeline transports, and said other alternatives like driving, trucking or hauling by barge or rail would increase the risk of a spill.

The commission’s approval contradicts Governor Whitmer’s efforts to shut down the pipeline. In the wake of the permit, the governor’s office told reporters the state commission is “independent.” Both of the governor’s appointees on the board voted in favor of the permit.

The approval doesn’t mean that the project will proceed, but it is encouraging for the company as it seeks federal clearance. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the process of putting together a draft environmental impact statement for the project. That document isn’t expected to be published until spring 2025.

In the meantime, Line 5 has gotten lots of support from the government of Canada, where Enbridge Energy is based. The government has repeatedly invoked a 1977 energy treaty between the U.S. and Canada to defend the pipeline.

That’s frustrating to Indigenous peoples who have seen their treaty rights repeatedly violated.

“What we’re simply trying to continue to preserve and protect is an Indigenous way of life, which is the same thing our ancestors tried to preserve and protect when they first entered into those treaty negotiations,” said Whitney Gravelle, chairperson of the Bay Mills Indian Community, one of numerous tribal nations opposing Line 5.

The Straits are also the site of Anishinaabe creation stories, the waters from which the Great Turtle emerged to create Turtle Island, what is currently called North America. Gravelle said that maintaining clean lakes where Indigenous people can fish is about more than just the right to fish. It’s about the continuation of culture.

“It’s about being able to learn from your parents and your elders about what fishing means to your people, whether it be in ceremony or in tradition or in oral storytelling, and then understanding the role that that fish plays in your community,” she said.

Last summer, José Francisco Calí Tzay, United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, called for suspending the pipeline’s operations “until the free, prior, and informed consent of the Indigenous Peoples affected is secured.” Free, prior, and informed consent is a right guaranteed to Indigenous Peoples under international law that says governments must consult Indigenous nations in good faith to obtain their consent before undertaking projects that affect their land and resources — consent that Bad River, for instance, has refused to give.

“Canada is advocating for the pipeline to continue operations, following the decision of a Parliamentary Committee that did not hear testimony from the affected Indigenous Peoples,” Calí Tzay wrote, adding the country’s support for the pipeline contradicts its international commitments to mitigate climate change in addition to the risk of a “catastrophic spill.”

Part of what makes Line 5 such a flashpoint is the importance of the Great Lakes and Enbridge’s spotty environmental record. As the Guardian reported last month, the Great Lakes “stretch out beyond horizons, collectively covering an area as large as the U.K. and providing drinking water for a third of all Canadians and one in 10 Americans.”

In 2010, two separate pipelines run by Enbridge ruptured, spilling more than a million gallons of oil between them into rivers in Michigan and Illinois. The Environmental Protection Agency found that Enbridge was at fault not only for failing to upkeep the pipeline but also for restarting the pipeline after alarms went off without checking whether it failed. The company eventually reached a $177 million settlement with federal regulators over the disaster.

A 2017 National Wildlife Federation analysis found that Line 5 has leaked more than a million gallons on 29 separate occasions. The company said just five of these instances were outside of Enbridge facilities, and that no spills have occurred in the Straits of Mackinac or on the Bad River Reservation. Still, the section of the pipeline on the floor of the Straits of Mackinac has been dented by boat anchors dropped in the lakes, including from Enbridge-contracted vessels.

Despite Indigenous peoples’ concerns, Line 5 continues to gain momentum, in part because of the amount of energy it supplies to the U.S. and Canada and the countries’ continued dependence on fossil fuels. While the international community agreed to curb fossil fuels this month at COP28, there’s no agreed-upon timeline for actually doing so, and the consumer demand for affordable energy remains high, especially in light of inflation driving the prices of food and housing.

Meanwhile, more than 60 tribal nations, including every federally recognized tribe in Michigan, have said the pipeline poses “an unacceptable risk of an oil spill into the Great Lakes.”

“The Straits of Mackinac are a sacred wellspring of life and culture for tribal nations in Michigan and beyond,” the nations wrote in an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit challenging the pipeline.

To Gravelle from the Bay Mills Indian Community, the issue is deeply personal and goes beyond maintaining access to clean water and the ability to fish safely. Fishing is deeply intertwined with her peoples’ culture. When a baby is born, their first meal is fish, and when her people hold traditional ceremonies, they serve fish.

“Our traditions and who we are as a people are all wrapped up into what we do with fish,” Gravelle said. “Our relationship with the land and water is more important than any commercial value that could ever be realized from an oil pipeline.”

_{This article was reposted from Grist.org.}

_{Anita Hofschneider is a journalist based in Honolulu, currently a senior staff writer at Grist, a nonprofit news site dedicated to climate solutions and a just future.}

Voters in Ecuador say no more oil drilling in Amazon rainforest / by Associated Press

_{^{Voters line up at a polling station during a snap election in San Miguel del Comun, Ecuador, Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. In a historic decision, Ecuadorians voted on Sunday against the oil drilling of Yasuni National Park, which is a protected area in the Amazon that’s home to two uncontacted tribes and serves as a biodiversity hotspot. | Dolores Ochoa / AP}}

_{Posted in the People’s World on August 23, 2023}

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)—Ecuadorians voted against drilling for oil in a protected area of the Amazon, an important decision that will require the state oil company to end its operations in a region that’s home to isolated tribes and is a hotspot of biodiversity.

With over 90% of the ballots counted by early Monday, around six in 10 Ecuadorians rejected the oil exploration in Block 43, situated within Yasuni National Park. The referendum took place along with the presidential election, which will be decided in a runoff between leftist candidate Luisa González and right-wing contender Daniel Noboa. The country is experiencing political turmoil following the assassination of one of the candidates, Fernando Villavicencio.

Yasuni National Park is inhabited by the Tagaeri and Taromenani, who live in voluntary isolation, and other Indigenous groups. In 1989, it was designated, along with neighboring areas, a world biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also known as UNESCO. Encompassing a surface area of around 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres), the area boasts 610 species of birds, 139 species of amphibians, and 121 species of reptiles. At least three species are endemic.

“Ecuadorians have come together for this cause to provide a life opportunity for our Indigenous brothers and sisters and also to show the entire world, amidst these challenging times of climate change, that we stand in support of the rainforest,” Nemo Guiquita, a leader of the Waorani tribe, told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

The referendum is the result of a long and winding process. It started in 2007 when then-President Rafael Correa announced that Ecuador would refrain from oil exploration in Block 43 if rich nations compensated the poverty-stricken country. This was to be accomplished through the establishment of a $3.6 billion fund, equal to 50% of the projected revenue from the block.

However, the fund drew in only a small fraction of the intended amount. As a result, in August 2013, Correa declared Ecuador’s intention to proceed with oil exploration in the block. In response, Indigenous and environmentalist movements initiated a campaign under the banner of the Yasunidos movement, seeking to amass signatures for the referendum. After almost one decade of legal battles and bureaucratic hurdles, the Supreme Court ruled in May that the measure must be incorporated into this year’s election.

The outcome represents a significant blow to Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso who advocated for oil drilling, asserting that its revenues are crucial to the country’s economy. State oil company Petroecuador, which currently produces almost 60,000 barrels a day in Yasuni, will be required to dismantle its operations in the coming months.

The South American country started exploring oil on a large scale in the Amazon in the 1970s when it became an Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries member —membership it withdrew in 2020. For decades, oil has been Ecuador’s main export. In 2022, it represented 35.5% of total exports, according to the country’s Central Bank. Block 43 alone contributes $1.2 billion annually to the federal budget.

In a statement Monday, Petroecuador said it would await the conclusion of the ballot counting before commenting on the referendum. The company added that it would comply with the decision of the Ecuadorian people.

The referendum applies only to Block 43. Within the Amazon region, oil production extends to other sections of Yasuni Park and into Indigenous territories. Accidents are commonplace, mostly through oil spills into the rivers.

“It’s not that we’re going to feel relieved. We can breathe a moment of calm, we’re happy, but there are many more oil wells in Waorani territory causing harm,” says Indigenous leader Guiquita. “We hope that with this public consultation, there will be a path marked by the fact that the decision belongs to the people and that we can remove all those who are extracting oil and polluting our land.”

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U.N. Indigenous forum tells U.S. and Canada to decommission Great Lakes oil pipeline / by Brandon Chew

_{^{The Mackinac Bridge is visible from a marker near Enbridge Line 5 on the northern shore of the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan. | Neil Blake / The Grand Rapids Press via AP}}

_{Originally published in the People’s World on May 15, 2023}

LANSING, Mich.—On Friday, April 28, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called on Canada and the U.S. to decommission Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline, which runs underneath the Straits of Mackinac.

Connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, the Straits are the short waterways between the state of Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas.

In the final report of its annual session, the UNPFII stated that Line 5 “jeopardize[s] the Great Lakes” and “represents a real and credible threat to the treaty-protected fishing rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada.”

Line 5 is just west of the Mackinac Bridge and was built in 1953 to transport oil from the tarsands in the Canadian province of Alberta to tanker ships in Lake Superior.

**_{^{A diver inspects one of the Line 5 oil pipelines at the lake bottom in the Straits of Mackinac. | Photo via National Wildlife Federation}}**

To convince local residents to accept Line 5, the company deployed salespeople to the region in the early 1950s presenting the project as “essential to the defense of the United States and the whole North American continent” amidst the Cold War.

In the decades that followed, Enbridge continuously increased the flow rate. By 2013, the corporation was pumping 540,000 barrels per day under the Straits.

The UNPFII recommends that Canada and the United States “decommission Line 5,” a spokesperson said.

The body was established in 2000 to provide advice and recommendations on Indigenous issues to the U.N. Economic and Social Council. The April 28 meeting of the UNPFII can be viewed by using this link.

“The Anishinabek are the people of the Great Lakes and never before has there been such a unified call for action for both the United States and Canada to abandon failing fossil fuel infrastructure to protect our land and water,” said Bay Mills Indian Community Ogimaakwe President Whitney Gravelle in a statement.

Members of a coalition of Anishinaabe leaders and environmental advocates attended the forum to advocate the highlighting of Line 5 as an Indigenous and human rights concern.

“Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline has already leaked at least 29 times, spilling over 4.5 million [liters] of oil. It isn’t a matter of if, but when another rupture will occur,” said Michelle Woodhouse, Water Program Manager for Environmental Defense Canada in a statement.

**_{^{Cory Morse / The Grand Rapids Press via AP}}**

“At a time when the world is facing a biodiversity, freshwater, and climate crises, it’s unconscionable for the Canadian government to gamble with the Great Lakes,” Woodhouse said.

“The Government of Canada must withdraw its use of the 1977 pipeline treaty, and work with U.S. governments and the Anishinaabeg Nations of the Great Lakes to shut down Line 5,” Woodhouse said.

Several representatives of Indigenous communities within the Great Lakes region recently submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council voicing concerns over Canada’s support for Line 5.

That report (which can be read here) was submitted for consideration under Canada’s fourth Universal Periodic Review, in which Canada’s human rights record will be reviewed and scrutinized by other U.N. member states.

Canada’s upcoming Universal Periodic Review is scheduled to take place from Nov. 6 – 17, 2023, at the U.N. Human Rights Council.

_{Brandon Chew is a journalist from northern Michigan.}