International Climate Policy

Syria, Nicaragua, and now the United States of America:  Official Members of the Climate Change Ostrich Club

“Hello Mr. President, I hope you will take action on climate change,” CSPW founder and George W. Bush White House climate change whistleblower Rick Piltz said politely but firmly to President Bush in the White House Rose Garden on a sunny morning in June 2001. The President was just about to make a much-anticipated statement [...]

ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (2009-2016) – Part Three (D): 2012

Severe drought affects a stock pond just south of Dallas. Source: http://n.pr/2oPn2xH This sixth installment of our series covers events occurring throughout 2012 that point to disparities between what was known and knowable by leadership at the Exxon Mobil Corporation, and what the oil giant was communicating to its shareholders regarding the risks to [...]

ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (2009-2016) – Part Three (C): 2011

Maura Healey & Eric Schneiderman SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2ouw2Ja This is the fifth installment of our series analyzing how Exxon Mobil Corporation has communicated to its shareholders the risks associated with climate change over the last two and a half decades, using the company’s annual 10-K reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The [...]

ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (2009-2016) – Part Three (B): 2010

From left, ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, Chevron Chairman and CEO John Watson and ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva are sworn in before a June 15, 2010 Congressional hearing on the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. SOURCE: Associated Press This latest installment of our series addressing how the ExxonMobil Corporation has been engaged in [...]

Notes from Underground: Fraxit

There was big news from Great Britain last month, and it wasn’t all about leaving the European Union: on June 1, Scotland voted to permanently ban fracking within its borders, reaffirming an earlier moratorium. Not long before, a council vote in North Yorkshire, England, allowed for renewed shale oil exploration and fracking for the first [...]

ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (2001-2008)

Disparaging legitimate scientific data and conclusions regarding global climate change and the role of fossil fuel combustion by dubbing it “junk science” has been a favorite tactic employed by the oil industry. This cartoon, penned in 2005, aptly captures the dynamic at play throughout President George W. Bush’s first term in office. [Image source: [...]

Notes From Underground: The Success of Paris…Pending

The year 2015 ended on an up note, but the real work lies ahead. An election year begins in the US, and the success or failure of the Paris agreement could come down to who, come 2017, controls the White House and the Senate, and whether the agreement is ratified. The agreement reached in Paris [...]

Notes From Underground: Pipeline to Paris

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is taking place in Paris until December 11th. The Paris Conference will hopefully yield real solutions to climate change — that is, provide measures to achieve sufficient mitigation of CO2-equivalent emissions to make adaptation to the unavoidable [...]

The Importance of Paris: What’s the Climate Now?

In the past year alone, there has been a marked sea-change in the wider American public and international discourse on climate change. For far too long, it seems, the world has had to endure the prolonged grieving process of the fossil fuel industry. The debate over climate change has been dominated by a fossil fuel [...]

On Keystone XL, John Kerry, and the global interest

Source: NASA/Wikimedia Commons Secretary of State Kerry calls on developing countries to reduce their carbon emissions, while U.S. corporations push exports of coal, oil, and natural gas. In the U.S. “National Interest Determination” on whether to approve construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, how does the U.S. ‘national interest’ relate to the [...]