Fossil Fuels

Greening Earth and creating Jobs, Biden to slash Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Extend Wind, Solar Credits

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Reuters reports that President Biden intends to slash tax subsidies for fossil fuels like coal and petroleum and to use taxes instead to encourage renewable energy. Since jobs in the coal industry are plummeting, and since job growth in renewable electricity is over 3 percent a year, Biden’s plans will […]

Climate Crisis

Why Activists have Launched a Fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty

China Dialogue

By Isabella Kaminski | – ( China Dialogue ) A fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (FFNPT) initiative was formally launched last September by a coalition of academics, lawyers and activists. It’s modelled on the landmark UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons agreed in the 1960s, and is built around the same three pillars: non-proliferation, […]

Authoritarianism

How the Big Oil – Dictator Complex Threatens our Planet

Basav Sen

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – This March, the leading global consulting firm IHS Markit held its CERAWeek conference, billed as the “world’s premier energy event” bringing together the “Who’s Who list of the global energy industry.” The conference’s keynote speaker and recipient of the Global Energy and Environment Leadership Award was Indian Prime Minister […]

Coal

As Solar, Wind costs Plummet, Coal, Gas vastly Over-priced in Bubble that could Burst worse than 2008

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new report by RethinkX, a think tank using the ideas of Tony Seba, who teaches Business at Stanford University, demonstrates that the value of fossil fuels and of the electric plants they fuel is vastly overstated by government agencies and financial analysts. Seba and his colleagues point out that […]

Featured

Oil Spikes on Yemeni Houthi droning of Saudi Petroleum Cities, in Argument for Wind and Solar Power

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – According to Al Jazeera, the Saudi military acknowledged that the Helpers of God or Houthis [pronounced like Ruthie] of Yemen targeted the Saudi oil port of Ras Tanoura on Sunday with a drone and ballistic missiles. A drone hit Ras Tanoura from the Gulf and pieces of a ballistic missile […]

Climate Crisis

From Covid to Power outages in Ice Storms, the Texas Republican Party has created a Failed State

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Republican Party has had a lock on Texas politics for over two decades, and has reduced it to a failed state. Even Texans like Beto O’Rourke are making this observation. Millions are without electricity in the midst of one of the state’s worse winter storms ever. This massive failure […]

Fossil Fuels

China’s National Carbon Market has Just Launched: How it Could be a Climate Game Changer

China Dialogue

By Huw Slater, Wang Shu and Dimitri De Boer | – ( China Dialogue) – With the new market having opened on 1 February, experts offer a take on how it may impact China’s industries and emissions trajectory China’s national carbon market started operating on 1 February, as mandated by a key regulatory document. Although […]

Climate Crisis

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the Coal Plants: How Joe Biden can save the Planet

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My title is from William Shakespeare’s Henry the VI. In the original, Dick “the Butcher” is speaking of ways to overthrow the king and improve the country, and he suggests killing all the lawyers first. Nowadays, carbon dioxide is the thing preventing us from improving the country. President Biden has […]

Climate Crisis

Solar just made Banks write off a $1 bn. Australian Coal Plant as Worthless; What’s in Your Retirement Portfolio?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Daniel Mercer at the Australian Broadcasting Company reports that the newest coal-fired power plant in the country, the 10-year-old, nearly $1 bn. USD Bluewater facility, has been written off as worthless by its investors. Southwestern Australia has so much cheap solar energy that the coal plant’s prospects cratered, especially once […]