In a long-anticipated move, Canada has introduced tougher methane regulations for its oil and gas sector, an industry that accounts for about half of the country’s methane pollution. The goal is to cut methane emissions by 75 percent below 2014 levels by 2035, a move the government says will dramatically reduce the climate impact of one of its biggest industries.
The new rules, revealed this week, are part of Canada’s broader strategy to rein in its climate footprint without derailing energy production. While oil and gas remain major economic drivers, the government is betting that smarter, cleaner practices can bring emissions down without cutting output in a significant way.
According to the Canadian government, these rules are expected to eliminate the equivalent of 304 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions between 2025 and 2035, while reducing production by a mere 0.2 percent.
The world's biggest corporations have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates as part of an effort to make it easier fo
The world's biggest corporations have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates as part of an effort to make it easier for people and governments to hold companies financially accountable, like the tobacco giants have been.
A Dartmouth College research team came up with the estimated pollution caused by 111 companies, with more than half of the total dollar figure coming from 10 fossil fuel providers: Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, National Iranian Oil Co., Pemex, Coal India and the British Coal Corporation.
For comparison, $28 trillion is a shade less than the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States last year.
🌎🔥 Corporate greed is fueling the climate crisis. Our planet is worth more than fossil fuel profits.
💸 Fossil fuel companies have profited for decades while driving the climate crisis, yet taxpayers are the ones paying for the damages caused by extreme weather.
🦀 Live in Maryland? We have the opportunity RIGHT NOW to make polluters pay! Learn more.
We all deserve to live and raise our families in safe & healthy communities.
What if the drone is to warfare as the solar panel is to energy?
Excerpt from this essay by Bill McKibben published by The New Yorker in its Lede column:
Since the U.S. and Israel began attacking Iran, President Trump has bragged about “totally destroying the terrorist regime” with “unparallelled firepower” and “unlimited ammunition.” Yet Iran has still managed to halt the flow of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for about a fifth of the world’s oil. On Saturday, as gas prices neared their highest level in years, Trump’s frustration seemed evident in a Truth Social post: “We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are.” America’s high-tech war machine is coming up against inexpensive upstart technologies—and it isn’t clear that we’re winning.
If Trump is wrong about American military dominance, then perhaps he’s also wrong about what he calls American energy dominance. His Administration has long promised to “unleash” American oil; last week, his Energy Secretary, the former fracking executive Chris Wright, used the Iran war to explain why BP would be allowed to drill in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. “At a time when Iran and its terrorist proxies attempt to disrupt the global energy supply, the Trump Administration remains committed to strengthening American energy dominance,” Wright said. But America’s fossil-fuel machine should be ready to face an inexpensive upstart technology, too. What if the drone is to warfare as the solar panel is to energy?
Because drones are very cheap, you can make many thousands of them, and hide them anywhere. Smaller unmanned aircraft don’t need a military airstrip to launch. Drones and ballistic missiles can often be intercepted, but the U.S. and Israeli militaries are using expensive weaponry to do that job. Eventually, the gap between a fifty-thousand-dollar drone and a three-million-dollar interceptor becomes important; there were reports, this past weekend, that Israel had begun to run low on interceptors. In other words, inexpensive “small tech” is standing up to expensive high tech—and, over time, the former can seem to gain a kind of advantage.
Something similar may be playing out in the energy sector. America can only achieve its dream of “energy dominance” for as long as the world relies on the enormous and expensive machinery of the fossil-fuel industry: tankers, refineries, gas-fuelled power plants. Much of this infrastructure depends on U.S. companies—which is why Trump recently announced, with uncharacteristic candor, that he didn’t mind the spike in the cost of crude. “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he wrote on Truth Social. Of course, the word “we” was doing a lot of work there. Big Oil makes money, and so do the parasitic politicians that the industry supports. The rest of us pay a lot of money. Gas is up nearly a buck since the war began.
And consumers have responded. In the first two weeks of the war, there has been a surge in the number of Americans looking to save money on energy—by asking for quotes on home solar systems and looking up electric vehicles online. We can expect similar trends in other countries. In India, where many kitchens depend on increasingly scarce and costly liquefied petroleum gas cylinders, consumers are racing to buy induction stoves. Many models are out of stock because restaurants have snatched them up; in the early days of the war, some Mumbai eateries shut their doors because they couldn’t find cooking gas and others stopped selling deep-fried or long-simmering foods because they required too much energy. Crematoria couldn’t find gas for their fires.
Inha Pavlii Just ten years ago, the coal industry was one of Ukraine’s largest industries. However, with the beginning of Russia’s armed agg
Just ten years ago, the coal industry was one of Ukraine’s largest industries. However, with the beginning of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine in 2014, the decay of mining towns in temporarily-occupied territories, accumulating industry debts, and the unstable economic situation have led to the industry’s gradual decline. These challenges stimulated the development of just transition strategies for communities that were previously considered purely mining towns.
A just transition framework envisages addressing social, economic, cultural and environmental issues in regions and cities built around fossil fuel extraction.
There are many examples around the world of single-industry towns that were created on the sites of coal, oil or other natural resource extraction sites.
Once the mines were exhausted or production fell, they became depressed areas where people faced social problems and falling living standards.
In Ukraine, entire regions felt the impacts of intensive mining. In addition to those in the Donbas (an abbreviation of the “Donetsk Coal Basin”), there are also single-industry towns in other regions.
One example is Sheptytskyi (formerly known as Chervonohrad) in the Lviv region in western Ukraine. After becoming a symbol of decline and Soviet colonization, this city entered a just transition process in 1999-2000, planned for completion by 2027. The framework should breathe life into one of the most depressed cities in western Ukraine.
What is “just transition” and how does it work?
How do communities abandon coal without harming workers and the environment? Just transition success stories for coal towns do exist, including, for example, the Ruhr region in Germany.
Germany’s Ruhr region in the west can well be called the “German Donbass”. It was here where most of the country’s mines were concentrated, mining a variety of grades of coal. However, when the coal and steel crises began (1950s-1970s), the region struggled economically. When the mines had to be closed, a population outflow was inevitable, and there were no prospects for life in the Ruhr. Local residents came to the rescue, promoting the idea of “reincarnation through culture—culture through reincarnation”. Under this slogan, the Ruhr region went from a large industrial agglomeration to a center of artists, scientists and designers.
Projects to preserve the monuments of the industrial past and develop tourism helped to rebuild the region and make it attractive for living. However, it was not easy. When the mine Zollverein received protection as a state monument, it was the workers who were indignant. Germany then carried out a large-scale program to create over 200,000 new jobs in order to offer former miners an alternative.
Today, the Zollverein was preserved in the state it was in when the mine ceased operation. It houses a museum and the coal mine is now filled with exhibits, tours and tourists instead of coal. In 2010, the Ruhr was even chosen as one of Europe’s cultural capitals.
