What’s the role of climate change in Snowmageddon and the gas crunch?
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Mar 7, 2018
National Grid issued emergency warnings last week when snow and freezing temperatures caused a gas crunch in the UK. With great tact, Big 6 company E.on chose the same week to hike average energy bills up to £1,150. This gas crunch was itself an outcome of burning fossil gas and accelerated climate change – specifically...
Hackney Council as the climate vanguard – or is it just a laggard?
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Jan 24, 2017
Hackney Council is voting tonight on its investment policy regarding fossil fuels and climate change. After years of campaigning by Divest Hackney and lots of media attention, this Tuesday is the big day for the Pensions Committee. But despite the hype and the repeated delays, the proposals are pretty disappointing. Hackney Council has £42 million in fossil...
Secret subsidy: Tens of billions in North Sea clean-up costs to be dumped on the public
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Dec 15, 2016
North Sea oil has generated billions upon billions of pounds in corporate profit since drilling began in the 1960s and 70s. But as oil extraction shifts into decline, it becomes time to clean up the mess – the rigs, pipelines and platforms that dot the sea floor. A general principle in law and common sense is...
Today’s oil drilling round could bust us through UK’s climate limits
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Oct 26, 2016
The UK government is pushing a massive new offshore drilling programme, that will take the UK beyond its climate limits. Oil companies had until 2pm today to bid for 1200 blocks covering large swathes of the sea off North-west and North-east Scotland and England. This is the the 29th Offshore Licensing Round, and it aims to identify hundreds of millions in...
Subsidising spills – British public pays BP $300 million to drill and spill
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Oct 7, 2016
BP came under criticism this week when it caused a 95 tonne oil leak from its Clair Field into the North Sea. The company decided not to clear up the spill, and wait for the oil to wash further out to sea. The new spill comes as BP no longer pays net taxes to the...
Sadiq’s ‘Energy Revolution’ must go beyond Boris’s dodgy deal with Big Energy
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Jul 28, 2016
This week, Sadiq Khan announced that the first stage of Energy for Londoners would be continuing Boris’s controversial License Lite scheme. Platform is part of the Switched on London campaign, so we’re cross-posting 3 reasons why this is not the ‘Energy Revolution London’ needs. With London lagging behind other major European cities on clean energy,...
6 reasons why #Budget2016 really really shouldn’t subsidise North Sea oil even more
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Mar 15, 2016
Osborne is announcing his #Budget2016 on Weds, and there’s lots of pressure from the oil barons for more subsidies and tax cuts. Their income has been hit by the falling oil price, and in all those years of bonanza profits they never thought to save for this rainy day (even though it was predictable given the mostly cyclical...
BP’s sponsorship of Tate is over!
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Mar 11, 2016
Today is one of those days when we know we’re winning. It emerged that BP’s sponsorship of art gallery Tate will end within a year. Until this morning we didn’t know whether Tate would be signing a new deal with the oil company, locking it into fossil fuel promotion for a further 5 years. But in a victory for cultural divestment,...
How to save energy jobs in Scotland: Public ownership, not tax cuts
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Aug 25, 2015
As thousands of North Sea oil workers lose their jobs, helicopter pilots threaten strike action over redundancy arrangements and Unite criticise the oil companies of failing “to plan for a rainy day when the sun shone”, we thought we’d share an extract of this new report. ——————————————————- Extract from “Jobs in Scotland’s New Economy”, published by the Scottish...
What is Energy Democracy and how do we pay for it?
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Jun 22, 2015
To build energy democracy we need to break the control of corporations over our energy. Companies like BP and Shell and the Big Six play an enormous role in determining which fuels are used to generate energy, how much we pay for electricity, and where the profits go. These big companies work hard to convince...
Divest and reinvest: 6 local governments that are innovating for sustainability
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Jun 16, 2015
This guest blog by Stuart Anderson was original posted by Friends of the Earth Scotland “The fossil fuel divestment movement is the fastest growing divestment campaign in history with over 500 active divestment campaigns underway at universities, cities, churches, banks, and other institutions.” – 350.org Over the past two years there has been a growing...
Free Mahienour: Egyptian revolutionary & climate justice activist
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May 28, 2015
Our ally Mahienour El-Massry is facing 2 years in jail in Egypt for speaking out against human rights abuses. This Sunday 31 May, a court will rule on her case. She faces a two year sentence on trumped up charges, for a small lawyers protest at Raml police station after cops assaulted another lawyer. The...
