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Message From the Editor
Recently, legal shots have been fired en masse against the oil industry over climate change. As former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson took the stand in New York’s case against the oil giant, clues about how the industry will be defending itself amid this barrage are starting to appear. Get the whole story from Dan Zegart, who was at the trial. Meanwhile, Justin Mikulka reports on the sunny outlook for renewable energy, coming from a surprising pair of sources that have long been skeptical of the potential for solar and wind power. Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmogblog.com. Thanks, As New York Takes Exxon to Court, Big Oil’s Strategy Against Climate Lawsuits Is Slowly Unveiled— By Dan Zegart (12 min. read) —Last week, in a historic first, the former CEO of a major oil company took the witness stand in a New York City courtroom and spent four hours defending his company against charges that it misled investors about the potential impact of global warming on its viability as a business. Rex Tillerson, who led ExxonMobil from 2006 until the end of 2016 when he became U.S. secretary of state, was grilled by an attorney for the New York State attorney general for allegedly participating in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” by Exxon to fool investors. More specifically, the company is charged with exaggerating the stringency of its financial safeguards in pricing risks from regulations restricting greenhouse gas emissions, according to the complaint filed last year in New York state court. READ MOREFossil Fuel Investments Cost California and Colorado Pension Funds Over $19 Billion, Report Finds— By Sharon Kelly (7 min. read) —California and Colorado’s public pension funds together lost out on over $19 billion over the past decade by investing in fossil fuel stocks, according to a report released on Tuesday. The three public pension funds analyzed are currently worth a combined $663 billion. However, if they’d divested from fossil companies in 2009 while keeping their other investments at the same proportions, they could have amassed a combined additional $19 billion in ten years, the report published by Corporate Knights, a Canadian media, research and financial firm, concludes. READ MORENew Estimates Predict a Lot More Renewable Power Growth in the U.S. Very Soon— By Justin Mikulka (5 min. read) —After revising its three-year U.S. power forecast, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has predicted major declines for fossil fuels and nuclear power alongside strong growth in renewables by 2022, according to a review of the data by the SUN DAY Campaign, a pro-renewables research and education nonprofit. “FERC's latest three-year projections continue to underscore the dramatic changes taking place in the nation's electrical generating mix,” noted Ken Bossong, executive director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “Renewable energy sources are rapidly displacing uneconomic and environmentally dangerous fossil fuels and nuclear power — even faster than FERC had anticipated just a half-year ago.” READ MOREFinancial Disclosures Show Why Toyota and GM Sided With Trump's Clean Car Rollbacks to Preserve Profits— By Dana Drugmand (6 min. read) —It’s been a bumpy ride for the auto industry in the ongoing battle over clean car regulations and California’s authority to set stricter rules for vehicle emissions. The industry is now divided as several automakers reached a deal over the summer with California to embrace a cleaner emissions standard through 2026, while a coalition of other carmakers recently backed the Trump administration in a lawsuit challenging the administration’s withdrawal of California’s waiver allowing it to set tougher tailpipe pollution controls. That coalition, which includes auto giants like General Motors and Toyota, claims to support “year over year increases in fuel economy” but also opposes California’s authority to set tailpipe emissions standards aligned with that increase. READ MOREChesapeake Energy’s Stock Falls Below $1 But Driller Plans to Spend Over $1 Billion on More Fracking— By Sharon Kelly (7 min. read) —The company that for the past decade has been emblematic of the rise and pitfalls of shale drilling and fracking, Chesapeake Energy, saw its stock price collapse today, plunging by 29.15 percent in a single day. At the end of the day on November 6, a share in Chesapeake (NYSE:CHK) was worth less than a buck, priced at $0.91. READ MOREUK Government Implements Fracking Ban – For Now— By Ruth Hayhurst for Drill or Drop (7 min. read) —After seven years of promoting fracking, Conservative ministers have withdrawn their support and blocked the prospects of a shale gas industry. The UK government has issued an immediate moratorium in England because of the risk of earth tremors. Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have already issued measures that amount to moratoriums on fracking. In a statement released just after midnight, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), said new scientific advice concluded that it was not possible with current technology to predict accurately whether fracking would cause tremors and how big they would be. READ MOREFrom the Climate Disinformation Database: Craig IdsoCraig Idso is the Chairman and former President of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. The center's stated mission is to “separate reality from rhetoric in the emotionally-charged debate that swirls around the subject of carbon dioxide and global change.” According to leaked internal documents from the Heartland Institute in 2012, Craig Idso was receiving $11,600 a month from the Heartland Institute through his center. Idso served as Director of Environmental Science at Peabody Energy, a major coal company, from 2001-2002. In a 2017 statement, Idso said carbon dioxide “will never cause the dangerous global warming that climate alarmists and their failed models predict.” |
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