Tag Archives: climate desk

One of the World’s Largest Coal Companies Misled Investors About Climate Change Risk, Investigation Finds

by RoscoeOmr202186 Posted on November 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Just days after President Barack Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, environmentalists were handed another victory Monday morning when New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman released the results of an investigation that found one of the world’s largest coal companies had misled the public and its shareholders about the risks climate change could pose to its bottom line.

After several years of investigations, Schneiderman reached an agreement with Peabody Energy that won’t require the company to admit it broke the law and does not entail a fine or other penalty. Instead, Peabody must file revised shareholder disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission with new language acknowledging that “concerns about the environmental impacts of coal combustion…could significantly affect demand for our products or our securities.”

Climate change could pose a serious risk to investors in publicly-traded fossil fuel companies, as governments around the world move to restrict carbon emissions. Many climate change advocacy groups say those companies have an obligation to their shareholders to be transparent about how demand for their product could diminish in the near future.

According to Schneiderman’s findings, Peabody had known since at least 2013 that policies enacted in the United States and abroad to fight climate change could significantly diminish demand for coal—one of the primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, one internal projection from that year found that climate regulations could slash sales at two of the company’s US coal mines by one-third or more, according to the findings. But at the same time, the company filed disclosures with the SEC that claimed it was “not possible for Peabody to reasonably predict the impact that any such laws or regulations may have on Peabody’s results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.”

That mixed messaging, Schneiderman found, violates New York laws prohibiting false or misleading claims in the company’s financial statements.

“As a publicly traded company whose core business generates massive amounts of carbon emissions, Peabody Energy has a responsibility to be honest with its investors and the public about the risks posed by climate change, now and in the future,” Schneiderman said in a statement.

In its own response, Peabody said the agreement represented “no admission or denial of wrongdoing” and that “the company has always sought to make appropriate disclosures.”

The agreement comes just days after Schneiderman issued a subpoena to ExxonMobil, kicking off an investigation into whether the oil giant has misled investors and the public about the basic science of climate change for decades. Exxon has denied any wrongdoing. While the two investigations have some similarities, Exxon could face tougher penalties than Peabody, said Andrew Logan, director of oil and gas programs at Ceres, an investor advocacy group. The allegations against Exxon stretch back much further in time and could potentially be more serious, so the attorney general could pursue more aggressive action against the company, Logan said.

Even with the Peabody investigation over, the coal company is hardly in a happy place. Its share price has tanked 87 percent this year, squeezed by the shrinking global market for coal. Many of Peabody’s coal-industry peers are also gravely wounded. In fact, coal demand may soon hit its fastest decline in history, according to data released today by Greenpeace. And while Peabody escaped financial penalties this time around, it could still face litigation from aggrieved shareholders, Logan said.

“They’re going back in time to change what they said in their disclosure statements,” he said. “It’s a very unusual thing in the securities world, and tends to bring real liability.”

Meanwhile, the agreement could put pressure on the SEC to step up its enforcement of climate-related statements (or the lack thereof) made not only by other energy companies, but also by corporations in other climate-sensitive sectors, such as property insurance and agriculture.

“On the one hand, this action has been directed at two companies. But the reasons they were targeted could be applied to whole other industries,” Logan said. “This is a huge victory for investors.”

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One of the World’s Largest Coal Companies Misled Investors About Climate Change Risk, Investigation Finds

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Here’s What You Need to Know About the West Coast’s Toxic Crabs

by Dee71Xtzgwsbaf Posted on November 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Fisherman from across the West coast are flocking to California, where the start of crabbing season is just days away. Or not: Health officials are warning that rock and Dungeness crabs along the state coast are contaminated by high levels of domoic acid, a known neurotoxin. State authorities are expected to decide this week whether or not to delay the opening of the Dungeness season—which yields one of the biggest harvests in the nation—and temporarily halt the harvest of rock crabs, which is permitted all year. In the meantime, here’s what you need to know:

How do I know whether that crab on I ordered last week was contaminated? Commercial seafood is regularly tested, so while there may be less Dungeness crab, you don’t have to freak out too much about consuming neurotoxins with the crab you ate at a restaurant or bought at a store. West Coasters should avoid eating recreationally caught shellfish (more details here). If domoic acid is ingested, it can cause vomiting, seizures, and in extreme situations, death. There haven’t been any reported hospitalizations or deaths from domoic acid poisoning since the late 1980’s, when three deaths and multiple hospitalizations spurred increased regulation.

Besides Dungeness crabs, are any other marine creatures are affected? Yes, lots. according to a NOAA report released Tuesday, domoic acid is showing up at potentially lethal levels among a record number of animals, including dolphins, whales, sea lions, and seabirds, and causing seizures among the latter two. Washington closed some areas to crabbing and clam digging earlier this year, Oregon has indefinitely postponed the start of its razor clam season, and California health officials have warned against eating recreationally caught shellfish in some regions.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

What’s this going to do the West Coast’s robust crabbing industry? California, Oregon, and Washington are the top producers of Dungeness crab in the United States; in California alone, commercial crabbing boats brought in 17 million pounds of the crab in 2014, worth nearly $60 million. Some fishermen make half of their income from the California Dungeness crab harvest, and the bloom is particularly ill-timed since Dungeness crabs are in highest demand between Thanksgiving and New Years. “These are incredibly important fisheries to our coastal economies and fresh crab is highly anticipated and widely enjoyed this time of year,” said the state Fish and Wildlife regional manager Craig Shuman. “But public health and safety is our top priority.”

Where is the domoic acid coming from? The acid is coming from a toxic phytoplankton, or algae, species that thrives in warm waters and makes its way into the food web as it’s consumed by anchovies, sardines, and shellfish. This year, thanks to a combination of El Niño and a large stretch of warm water off the west coast dubbed “the blob,” the algae has bloomed at record-setting levels, forming a ribbon up to 40 miles wide snaking up the West coast.

Is climate change causing this problem? Scientists are reluctant to attribute any one event solely to climate change, but warmer waters are certainly playing a role—and ocean temperatures are expected to continue warming with climate change. “The toxins are commonly present in the food web but this year, with this unprecedented bloom, they’re likely having a bigger impact than ever before,” said Kathi Lefebvre, a biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “Our concern is that there does appear to be a link between warm water and bigger blooms, so what does this tell us about future years with warmer conditions?”

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Here’s What You Need to Know About the West Coast’s Toxic Crabs

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Coal-Loving Republicans Are Suing Obama Again

by AlbertoMueller Posted on October 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama’s signature plan to fight climate change was formally published this morning, thus opening the season for a fresh round of legal challenges from two dozen states, most of which are major coal consumers.

The Clean Power Plan, as it’s known, aims to reduce the nation’s power-sector carbon footprint to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. To reach that goal, each state has a unique target that it can achieve by cleaning or shuttering coal-fired power plants, building renewable energy systems, and investing in energy efficiency. Ever since it was first proposed a couple years ago, it’s been a punching bag for Republicans in Congress, in state capitals, and in the 2016 presidential race. Marco Rubio recently promised to “immediately stop” the plan if elected.

The dangerous, cutthroat world of America’s most notorious coal baron

The plan has also already spent a lot of time in court, so far surviving a series of attempts by states and coal companies to block it from being implemented. The last such case ended in September, when a federal court ruled that legal challenges couldn’t be brought until the final version of the new rules was officially published.

Now that threshold has been crossed, and the lawsuits are flooding in. According to the Hill, 24 states and Murray Energy, a coal company, filed suits Friday morning:

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), who is leading the legal fight against the plan, called it “the single most onerous and illegal regulations that we’ve seen coming out of D.C. in a long time.”

The West Virginia and Murray lawsuits came the day the rule was published in the Federal Register, the first day court challenges can legally be filed. The states joining West Virginia are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Arizona and North Carolina.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that most of these states are major consumers of coal, the most carbon-polluting form of energy, and are thus the most likely to take a beating from the regulations. (Of course, coal has been struggling since before Obama even took office). Here’s a look at how much the suing states depend on coal; I’ve ranked them by the share of their total electricity mix that comes from coal, rather than by their total consumption volume:

Tim McDonnell

It’s worth noting as well that all but three of those states (Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina) have Republican attorneys general. Now that the dust has basically settled on battles over gay marriage and Obamacare, the Clean Power Plan is the next logical thing for GOP-led states to fight with the Obama administration about.

But the plan really isn’t as crazy as Morrisey, et al., would have you believe. In fact, it has taken some heat from environmentalists for not going far enough, and for doing little more than locking in the incremental greenhouse gas reductions that were already happening. Still, there’s a lot riding on these legal challenges, because the Clean Power Plan is the administration’s main bargaining chip for the global climate negotiations coming up in a month in Paris. The promises that Obama has made to the rest of the world as to how the United States will help slow climate change basically ride on this plan. So if the plan were to be killed in court, the whole international agreement could collapse.

Fortunately, it seems very unlikely that the court will throw the rule out, said Tomás Carbonell, a senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Carbonell added that if history is a guide, the litigation is likely to come to a conclusion before Obama leaves office, which would preclude the possibility that a President Donald Trump or another climate change denier could let the plan wither on the vine by refusing to defend it in court.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has a good explainer on the plan’s strengths, not least of which is that most states are already well on their way to coming up with a plan for compliance. So far, it doesn’t seem like anyone is following Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) advice to just ignore the plan altogether.

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Coal-Loving Republicans Are Suing Obama Again

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Here’s Barack Obama’s Newest Plan to Fight Climate Change

by LarueM834422536 Posted on October 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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The White House launched a new Twitter handle devoted to climate change Tuesday afternoon. The stream, called @FactsOnClimate, claims to provide “the facts on how is combating climate change in the U.S. and mobilizing the world to .”

The first three tweets highlight the most important pieces of President Barack Obama’s climate legacy: His signature plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and his stated commitment to reaching an international agreement on climate action in Paris this winter.

As Obama has made climate action a priority during his second term, his administration has doubled down on slick digital content to get the word out. There’s a nice basic website, an immersive interactive portal to explore the science, Facebook videos, essays on Medium, and now this.

The Paris talks, where the US delegation is expected to support a commitment to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025 (compared to 2005 levels), are coming up in just over a month. Heads of state from around the globe are expected to drop in for the first day of the talks; on Monday, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters they “could certainly count Obama among the leaders who’s considering traveling to Paris.”

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Here’s Barack Obama’s Newest Plan to Fight Climate Change

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We Now Know Marco Rubio’s Energy Plan: Drill, Drill, Drill, and Drill Some More

by StarlaHeidelber Posted on October 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Marco Rubio sidestepped the challenges posed by climate change as he laid out his campaign’s energy policy Friday afternoon at a manufacturing plant in Salem, Ohio. Instead, the Florida senator and GOP presidential hopeful called for expanding oil and gas development, weakening environmental protections, and rolling back President Barack Obama’s efforts to combat climate change, which Rubio characterized as an illegal intrusion into the market by overreaching government agencies.

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Rubio’s proposals amounted to a conservative policy wish list. He’d dismantle Obama’s carbon pollution rules for existing power plants, change Department of Energy grants for new energy research, and make it harder for environmental groups to sue the government.

“On matters of energy, Washington uses a vast regulatory bureaucracy to override consumers and undercut innovators,” Rubio told the audience. “And the results are fewer choices, fewer jobs, and higher prices.” He cast himself as a Washington outsider, saying, “Leaders in both parties are to blame,” and he criticized Hillary Clinton’s promise to tackle climate change as simply a misguided attempt at “changing the weather.” He described the Clean Power Plan—Obama’s new rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants—as “one of the costliest regulations of all time.”

Rubio paid scant attention to efforts to develop clean energy. Instead, he pledged to review Obama’s offshore drilling policies to ensure increased oil and gas production, promised to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and called for speeding up approval of natural-gas export terminals, according to a policy paper posted to his website Friday afternoon.

The announcement from Rubio—who previously declared that America shouldn’t act on climate change because “it is not a planet”—provides a stark contrast to the Democratic presidential candidates, who called for climate action in their first televised debate Tuesday night. Clinton, for example, promised new investments “in infrastructure and clean energy, by making it possible once again to invest in science and research, and taking the opportunity posed by climate change to grow our economy.”

Rubio has said that climate change is real (he voted in January for a Senate resolution that said climate change is real and not a hoax), but he has publicly speculated that humans aren’t to blame. “I do not believe in climate change in the way that some of these people out there are trying to make us believe,” Rubio told CBS’ Face the Nation in April. “I believe the climate is changing because there’s never been a moment where the climate is not changing.”

“The question is what percentage of that, or what is due to human activity,” he said.

Not surprisingly, green groups immediately slammed Rubio’s energy plan. The vice president of the League of Conservation Voters said in a statement that Rubio’s proposals “will unleash waves of damage like those already flooding Miami’s streets. His plan would accelerate climate change just to protect the profits of the big polluters that fund his campaign.”

“Senator Rubio’s plan appears to have been written by executives in the fossil fuel industry,” said Khalid Pitts, political director at the Sierra Club, according to the Hill.

Rubio’s remarks also come at a time when the candidate is drawing interest from big donors, including casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

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We Now Know Marco Rubio’s Energy Plan: Drill, Drill, Drill, and Drill Some More

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Alaska Governor Says State Needs More Oil Drilling to Pay for Climate Change Damage

by BlytheT619 Posted on October 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Yep. In an interview with the BBC’s Matt McGrath, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker just made perhaps the most remarkable statement I’ve ever encountered.

“We are in a significant fiscal challenge. We have villages that are washing away because of the change in the climate,” Walker said. Relocating these villages is proving to be “very expensive,” he continued.

McGrath asked, “So you’re saying that given the climate change impacts in Alaska, you need to be allowed to continue to drill and explore and produce oil to pay for some of those impacts in Alaska?”

Walker’s response: “Absolutely.”

The response on Twitter was immediate and harsh, especially from climate activists:

Unfortunately, this is the situation we find ourselves in as America trends toward petrostate politics. As the Hill notes, Alaska has no sales or income tax and derives a significant portion of its revenue from fossil fuel production on public lands. In a very real way, the recent dip in oil prices has hit the state hard—just as climate change impacts have begun to intensify. In one particularly stark example, although this year’s wildfire season was a record-breaker, the state had fewer resources with which to attack the blazes due in part to budget cuts linked to lower oil prices.

The situation has grown still worse in Alaska in recent weeks: In late September, Royal Dutch Shell suddenly announced it was abandoning plans to drill offshore of Alaska’s northwest coast after it failed to locate oil in any meaningful quantities during its controversial exploration this summer. As McGrath notes, that oil may have given a boost to the flagging Trans Alaskan Pipeline, now just one-quarter full due to flagging production on Alaska’s North Slope. Without oil as a reliable income source, Alaska’s politicians have begun a tough look inward to re-envision their state’s future. Apparently, that reality check hasn’t yet reached the governor’s office.

Alaska is America’s front line on climate change. What’s happening there is, in many ways, a preview of what the rest of us are in for should the world continue on something resembling the worst-case scenario path. Let’s hope when that time comes, politicians in the Lower 48 won’t be quite so shortsighted.

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Alaska Governor Says State Needs More Oil Drilling to Pay for Climate Change Damage

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Shell Just Scrapped Its Arctic Drilling Plans for "the Forseeable Future"

by EthelChutqbor Posted on September 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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And just like that, it was over.

After years of botched attempts, mountains of red tape, billions of dollars, and countless face-offs with protestors, Royal Dutch Shell announced today that it is pulling the plug on all oil and gas exploration in the Arctic ocean “for the forseeable future.” From the press release:

Shell has found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J well, but these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration in the Burger prospect. The well will be sealed and abandoned in accordance with U.S. regulations.

“The Shell Alaska team has operated safely and exceptionally well in every aspect of this year’s exploration program,” said Marvin Odum, Director, Shell Upstream Americas. “Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the US. However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin.”

There was always a chance this could happen. Given the sky-high costs of drilling and transporting oil in the Arctic, making the venture profitable required a complex soup of numbers to all fall in Shell’s favor, particularly how much oil there really was down there and how much Shell could expect to sell it for. (No amount of gas would likely be profitable.) The press release skimps on details, but it blames “the Burger J well result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.” It also says that Shell is locked into paying $1.1 billion in existing contracts.

Thanks to climate change and the loss of Arctic sea ice, many energy experts have been increasingly bullish on the prospects for Arctic oil exploration. The area could theoretically have the potential to outstrip the Middle East, but as of now it’s now largely untapped. The decision today is a heavy blow to future offshore drilling projects in the Arctic, said Robert Dillon, spokesperson for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has been one of the biggest congressional proponents of offshore oil drilling.

“It’s certainly a disappointment,” he said. “It’s now becoming more and more questionable whether there’s going to be offshore activity at all. A lot of uncertainty of how we go forward in Alaska.”

The decision was also a major win for environmental groups, many of whom have made Shell’s Arctic exploration a central focus of their campaigns over the last year.

“It’s proof positive that it’s time to stop going to the ends of the Earth to search for dangerous, costly fossil fuels,” said Franz Matzner, director the Beyond Oil initiative at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s not safe, it’s not what the science demands if we’re serious about climate change, and Shell just proved that it doesn’t make any sense.”

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Shell Just Scrapped Its Arctic Drilling Plans for "the Forseeable Future"

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Did Pope Francis Soften His Climate Message for Congress?

by WaldoFeliz Posted on September 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the run-up to Pope Francis’ address to Congress today, there was a lot of speculation about how his climate change message would play in a chamber where action on climate often goes to die. Most of the pontiff’s positions on global warming are not popular with Republican members of Congress—especially the fact that it exists, and that humans are causing it.

We got a bit of a preview during the pope’s speech yesterday at the White House, where he laid out his typically forceful message on the need to fight global warming. He even favorably mentioned President Barack Obama’s new restrictions on power plant emissions:

Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution. (Applause.) Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to our future generation. (Applause.) When it comes to the care of our common home, we are living at a critical moment of history. We still have time to make the change needed to bring about a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. (Applause.)

But a draft of the pope’s speech to Congress this morning lays out a considerably softer message on climate. He cites his landmark encyclical on climate, Laudato Si, but he doesn’t use the phrase “climate change” at all:

It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable. “Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good” (Laudato Si’, 129). This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote in order to “enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (ibid., 3). “We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (ibid., 14).

In Laudato Si’, I call for a courageous and responsible effort to “redirect our steps” (ibid., 61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a “culture of care” (ibid., 231) and “an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (ibid., 139). “We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology” (ibid., 112); “to devise intelligent ways of… developing and limiting our power” (ibid., 78); and to put technology “at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral” (ibid., 112). In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.

The message today is much softer, much less direct. Perhaps Pope Francis didn’t want to tread too heavily on the message in a room that wouldn’t be receptive to it.

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Did Pope Francis Soften His Climate Message for Congress?

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Pope Challenges Joint Congress to Work for the "Common Good"

by HallieMcGruder Posted on September 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday, Pope Francis delivered his much anticipated speech before a joint Congress. In his remarks, which marks the first time the leader of the Catholic Church has spoken before a U.S. Congress, Francis urged lawmakers to focus on the “common good” of human society, specifically to protect vulnerable members of society and the environment.

“You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics,” Francis said. “A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk.”

Francis also directly addressed the struggles of immigrants crossing the border and the current refugees crisis in Europe.

“We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation,” he said.

“Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'”

The Golden Rule was a theme he continued to invoke in order to underscore his positions on income inequality, abortion, and capitol punishment.

For weeks leading up to the historic speech, Francis’ address has been a point of contention for some Republicans who view his outspoken messages on combating climate change and income inequality to conflict with the party’s stance on these issues. Last week, one Catholic congressman even announced he would be boycotting the speech altogether.

Read his speech in full here.

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Pope Challenges Joint Congress to Work for the "Common Good"

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Here’s How Much Pollution Volkswagen’s Smog Scandal Produced

by RebekahCanipe03 Posted on September 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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The story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Volkswagen isn’t going to get away with this. You don’t (allegedly!) fake emissions data for a few million cars and just walk away. But what the German automaker’s punishment will be, and how much it’s going to hurt—those are still open questions.

The final decision will be up to lawyers at the US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice. That latter agency has opened a criminal probe into the company’s (alleged!) emissions software tampering shenanigans. But based on precedent and the outlines of what Volkswagen actually seems to have done, we can make a few predictions.

If US officials absolutely throw the book at VW, EPA rules stipulate a maximum fine of $37,000 per affected car. At 482,000 cars on American roads, that comes to $18 billion. But according to attorneys who work on these kind of cases, that number is way too high for what’ll actually happen. The biggest fine of this kind to date was $1.2 billion, a criminal penalty that Toyota paid in 2014 for concealing information about faulty ignition switches that triggered sudden accelerations.

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Here’s How Much Pollution Volkswagen’s Smog Scandal Produced

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