Fossil Fuel: Profits Over People

The report on Physical Science Basis, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1 this year provides an update on what’s happening to our warming planet and why. It distils the advances in physical climate science since the previous assessment report published 8 years ago. The IPCC report makes vividly clear what’s at stake if we don’t stop greedy corporations from fueling the climate crisis.

Climate change is no longer a future threat. It is here and it’s rapidly getting worse. The unprecedented heatwaves and wildfires, heavy rains and floods, dying sea-life, melting polar ice and collapsing ecosystems provide painful reminders of just how far into the danger zone we have already plunged. What matters now is where we go from here.

It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land. Multiple lines of evidence indicate the unprecedented nature of recent large-scale climatic changes in the context of all human history.

Warming will continue until carbon emissions reach net zero. Meeting the Paris Agreement long-term goal of 1.5°C would mean less of everything—sea-level rise, worsening weather extremes, and harshening living conditions in both land and ocean—compared to higher warming levels. The 1.5°C warming limit is still within reach, from a physical perspective, but only with rapid emissions cuts that bring carbon emissions to net zero and beyond.

Failing to cut global emissions from current levels could eat up the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C by 2030. Strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in methane emissions are also needed, and would come with the co-benefit of improved air quality by reducing global surface ozone.

The science is clear, the situation is serious, and now it’s all hands on deck.

We must do everything faster and bolder, at all levels, leaving no sector behind. We must speed up and scale up for good, with massive public pressure. This is our moment of truth, a time for radical honesty. With incremental action we are only fooling ourselves.

There can’t be any new fossil fuel investments anywhere, and the phase-out of existing fossil fuel infrastructure must align with the 1.5°C budget. Big polluters must stop doing better and start doing enough.

This is the moment to rise up, be bold, and think big. And there’s a role to play for everyone.

Read the Greenpeace briefing on the IPCC report’s key takeaways in full.

Shocking aerial photos captured by Greenpeace Brazil this summer showed large-scale, illegal fires clearing land in the Amazon for three years in a row. Satellite data also confirmed that thousands of fires were burning at the end of July, the same month a new study in Nature revealed parts of the Amazon now emit more carbon than they absorb.

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and his administration have an explicit anti-Indigenous agenda and anti-environment agenda. To date, Bolsonaro’s actions have encouraged the invasion of land grabbers, miners, and loggers on Indigenous territories The burning and clearing of the Amazon rainforest in areas recognized as public lands has been enabled by two and a half years of sabotaging environmental enforcement in Brazil, and encouraged by a Congress that is using emergency powers to vote on new laws that would reward and legitimize these sorts of land grabbing practices.

Landgrabbers, and the mining and agribusiness sectors, see Indigenous Peoples’ rights as an obstacle to endless expansion. The result is the companies sourcing from these areas and the financing of agricultural expansion in Brazil continue to treat such dangerous trends as normal while profiting from an environment of recklessness and exploitative practices. People must come before profits!

Indigenous Peoples, across the Amazon and communities in Brazil’s critical biomes from the Cerrado to the Pantanal wetlands, are on the front lines of the fight against irreversible climate breakdown. The UN estimates that the land that Indigenous Peoples live on is home to 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity—carbon-absorbing biodiversity that is crucial in the global fight against climate change.

If Indigenous lands in the world’s largest rainforest are opened up for large scale industrial agriculture and mining, we will all struggle to bring climate change under control. Amidst the “code red” climate emergency, we cannot afford to lose the Amazon.

For decades, the Greenpeace global network has worked to protect forests from commercial exploitation through our hard-hitting exposés, direct communications targeting corporations, and lobbying governments—including our own. The U.S. government has remained silent on the assault of Indigenous rights in Brazil and the legislative agenda that will accelerate the destruction of the Amazon and its people.

Greenpeace USA is campaigning for the U.S. to address its own role in global deforestation and human rights violations both through its import and consumption of forest-and-ecosystem risk commodities, and this includes the U.S. promotion and finance of its expansions overseas. We must take rapid action to denounce the attacks against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, uphold their land rights, and end the destruction of the Amazon.

The time for action is now: Tell U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry that the U.S. government must speak out and confront Bolsonaro’s anti-Indigenous and anti-environment agenda.

Santos Bights the Dust

In a momentous win for our Aussie colleagues who relentlessly campaigned for years, Santos and Murphy Oil announced they are abandoning plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight. BP, Chevron, and Norwegian oil giant Equinor have all abandoned their plans, and now only Bight Petroleum remains with intentions to drill for oil in the Bight—however its last plans were knocked back by the regulator earlier this year, adding momentum to the ongoing campaign to protect Australia’s wild whale sanctuary.

Greenland Ends New Oil Exploration

Saying that “the price of oil extraction is too high,” government officials announced the suspension of all new oil and gas exploration. Kalistat Lund, the country’s Minister for Agriculture, Self-sufficiency, Energy and Environment, said that the government “takes climate change seriously. We can see the consequences in our country every day, and we are ready to contribute to global solutions to counter climate change.” A terrific win for our climate and Earth’s future!

Spain Ends Uranium Mining

After a decade of mobilizations, Greenpeace Spain and allies celebrate that the Nuclear Safety Council denied the authorization to build the uranium concentrates manufacturing plant in Retortillo (Salamanca), due to the low reliability and great uncertainties of the safety analysis of the radioactive facility in geotechnical and hydrogeological aspects as well as the numerous deficiencies throughout the evaluation. This decision marks the end of the mining project of the company Berkeley Minera España, SL in Salamanca and, with it, the end of uranium mining in Spain—a big victory for people and the environment!

European Central Bank Takes Climate Action

The European Central Bank (ECB) has agreed that soon only companies in line with the Paris climate agreement will be eligible for corporate sector asset purchases. In its new monetary strategy, the bank recognizes the overall impact of climate change and commits to stay in line with the EU’s climate goals and objectives, although Greenpeace offices warned that the implementation period should be accelerated to respond to the escalating climate crisis. The new policy makes the ECB the first large central bank to prepare the ground to meet the EU’s climate objectives. Progress!