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South Dakota House committee approves two carbon pipeline bills
EU co-legislators reach provisional deal on net zero industry act
Labor’s fuel-efficiency standards may settle the ute dispute – but there are still hazards on the road
AI unlocks ancient text owned by Caesar's family
BP’s new boss should be clearer on green strategy – fudging pleases no one | Nils Pratley
Shareholders on all sides want to know where the oil giant stands on renewables, yet Murray Auchincloss opts for ambiguity
If in doubt, throw cash at the shareholders. It’s a safe tactic for a new chief executive assailed on two sides by investors with conflicting grumbles. BP’s Murray Auchincloss seized his debut moment. There will be $3.5bn of share buy-backs in the first half of this year, accelerating to a total of $14bn by the end of next. The shares rose 5%. For a week or two, that might stop people pointing out how BP’s share price has lagged its peers’.
Yet shareholders of all hues – those who want to transition faster out of fossil fuels and those who can’t see the point – surely also wanted to hear a clear statement from Auchincloss on where he stands in the great debate. How will BP prioritise its spending of cash that isn’t going on buy-backs and dividends?
Continue reading...EU Commission plans for 280 Mt of carbon capture by 2040
NextEra-backed carbon removals startup secures Series A funding
Brussels backs off agriculture emissions cuts in recommended 90% target for 2040
Argentina’s new law to compromise glaciers, biodiversity -media
Corporate climate disclosure on the rise, but few firms hitting top marks, finds report
EU Commission withdraws divisive pesticides bill
After 38 attacks on art, climate protesters have fallen into big oil’s trap – it’s time to change tack | Giovanni Aloi
Repetition has blunted the art museum protests so much that the pumpkin soup assault on the Mona Lisa felt pathetic. More effective tactics are needed
How many of the 38 environmental protests staged in museums in 2022 can you remember? How many of the more recent ones only generated widespread outrage? Did any of them lead to tangible change? The protesters’ cause is serious, the threat is very real, the message is important and urgent. But is it not getting through to the public?
Sixty years ago, Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and multiplied Marilyn Monroe screen-prints exposed modern repetition as an ideal of mindlessness – an inescapable capitalist pattern ingrained in the oversaturated modes of production and consumption that distract and overwhelm while nurturing an irreducible sense of modern apathy. How many times is too many? Repetition is a complex phenomenon: it can deepen or hollow out experiences depending on how it is deployed. Repeated ad libitum anything shocking quickly becomes commonplace. Aware of the risk, good artists try not to repeat themselves; instead they strive to constantly reinvent. From Friedrich Nietzsche to Søren Kierkegaard, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Mark Fisher, Frantz Fanon, Robert Hughes, and Amia Srinivasan, modern thinkers have dwelled extensively on the all-pervasive pacifying powers of unwitting repetitiveness. The shock of the new quickly melts into the air.
Continue reading...‘Symbol of polarisation’: EU scraps plans to halve use of pesticides
Move is among bloc’s latest environmental concessions to farmers as protests continue across Europe
The European Commission is shelving plans to cut pesticide use and is taking the pressure off agriculture in its latest emissions recommendations, as farmers around Europe continue protests demanding higher prices for their products and an easing of EU environment rules.
The original proposal to halve chemical pesticide use in the EU by the end of the decade – part of the EU’s green transition – “has become a symbol of polarisation”, said the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. She added that she would ask the commission to withdraw the proposal.
Continue reading...Vattenfall reports drop in ETS-covered fossil generation in 2023
EU lays out plan to cut greenhouse emissions by 90% by 2040
Proposal is part of European Commission’s aim to become world’s first climate-neutral continent
The EU aims to slash its net greenhouse gas pollution by 90% by 2040 as part of its push to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent, the European Commission has announced before elections in June.
Under a landmark proposal laid out by its executive body on Tuesday, the bloc will have to pump 90% less planet-heating gas into the air by 2040 than it did in 1990, a figure which includes the carbon it removes from the atmosphere.
Continue reading...BP buys back shares to boost value while lowering energy transition spend
After Paris’s coup against SUVs, the UK should slam the brakes on these polluting monsters too | Andrew Simms
Parisians have voted to triple parking charges for these behemoths. Let that be the start of a much wider crackdown
Paris has developed a taste for better city living. Its vote to begin pricing sports utility vehicles (SUVs) off its streets by tripling parking charges is part of a diet for reversing autobesity – the trend by car manufacturers towards larger, more dangerous and polluting cars.
It’s not difficult to see what has driven Parisians’ ire: the reasons to dislike SUVs form a tailback so long it’s hard to see the front of the queue.
Andrew Simms is an author, co-director of the New Weather Institute, coordinator of the Badvertising campaign and the Rapid Transition Alliance, assistant director of Scientists for Global Responsibility and a research associate at the University of Sussex
Continue reading...Australia is finally adopting vehicle emissions standards – will some cars be more expensive?
Some SUVs and utes could cost more unless they clean up their act, while EVs could get cheaper under the new standards
Carmakers are crunching the numbers on the federal government’s new vehicle efficiency standard (NVES) to make plans for what is shaping up to be a very different new car market by the end of the decade.
Some models could be discontinued or get more expensive, while more fuel efficient vehicles and EVs look set to be cheaper – and we’ll almost certainly have a broader range of hybrid and electric models to choose from.
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