Repost from YouTube [Editor: See also Clément’s and Sophie’s website, The Takeoff. – RS]
The Condor and The Eagle
A documentary film directed by Clément Guerra
In April 2014, Clément and Sophie Guerra began their epic journey here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Interviewing many of us who are working to stop Crude By Rail in our refinery towns, they have now released “The Condor And The Eagle – Mini Series – Episode 1- The Bay Area.”
Our project started 10 months ago in the Bay Area, CA. There is currently this feeding frenzy in 5 communities of the Bay of proposed projects to retool the refineries to receive, transport and refine dirtier bottom of the barrel oil: Bakken and Tar Sands. The communities are now coming together, ready to fight back and make sure that California won’t take part of this devastating mega projects that are Alberta tar sands. People are rising, more and more people come together. Nothing is done yet, it will take a lot of work to give the movement the kind of form that will make a difference. It’s about re-creating the foundations of an inclusive dynamic, focused on how to bring onboard those who aren’t yet.
Featuring:
– Pennie Opal Plant
– Andres Soto
– Marilyn Bardet
– Kalli Graham
– Ed Ruszel
– Bill Nichols
– Greg Karras
– Nancy Rieser
Norway’s divestment is great news. But this is the last moment to be complacent.
By Tim Ratcliffe February 6, 2015
Today’s news that the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth (oil) Fund has divested from a total of 22 companies, potentially totaling billions of dollars in assets, is a huge win for the rapidly growing divestment campaign and should be celebrated. In fact, in terms of amount of money it is likely the biggest divestment decision to date, so reason to be optimistic that this rapidly growing campaign is having a serious impact.
But once the celebrating is over, there’s no time to sit back. Now is the time to push. In the words of Naomi Klein, acclaimed author and journalist, regarding the implications of the falling oil price, “We’re in a much better situation to win but we need to understand that this is a window. This is the last moment to be complacent.”
This has been reiterated in recent publications by both the Economist and Deutsche Bank. The reality is that most of the carbon in our already proven reserves must stay in the ground and that legislation to ensure that this is the case is just around the corner. Now is the time to demand big changes.
The Norwegian oil fund still invests in well over 100 fossil fuel companies with assets totalling around $40bn, and total reserves representing well over 500gt CO2 if burnt. Enough to take the world soaring past a 2 degree target and any chance of stopping dangerous changes to the climate system.
“I see this as a “counter-move” from Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), the group that oversees investments by the fund, to the growing pressure from divestment, where they try to demonstrate to politicians that they can do OK without stricter political mandates,” suggests Truls Gulowsen, campaigner with Greenpeace Norway. “It is still up to Parliament to instruct the Fund to complete full fossil fuel divestment, as the Fund still has billions in coal, oil and tar sands investments. This decision is scheduled for May this year, so maximum pressure on Norway is needed.”
Global Divestment Day next week, 13 and 14 February comes at the perfect time to increase the pressure on institutions such as the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth fund to commit to full divest from fossil fuels.
Repost from The Guardian [Editor: significant quote: “Note: The first line originally said 40 coal mining companies had been dropped, instead of the correct number of 32. A further eight companies were dropped due to their greenhouse gas emissions: five tar sand producers, two cement companies and one coal-based electricity generator.” My emphasis. – RS]
World’s biggest sovereign wealth fund dumps dozens of coal companies
Norway’s giant fund removes investments made risky by climate change and other environmental concerns, including coal, oil sands, cement and gold mining
By Damian Carrington, 5 February 2015
Part of a mining platform at a disused coal mine in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway. The country’s £556bn sovereign wealth fund, GPFG, has published its divestment details in its first report on responsible investing. Photograph: Alamy
The world’s richest sovereign wealth fund removed 32 coal mining companies from its portfolio in 2014, citing the risk they face from regulatory action on climate change.
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), worth $850bn (£556bn) and founded on the nation’s oil and gas wealth, revealed a total of 114 companies had been dumped on environmental and climate grounds in its first report on responsible investing, released on Thursday. The companies divested also include tar sands producers, cement makers and gold miners.
As part of a fast-growing campaign, over $50bn in fossil fuel company stocks have been divested by 180 organisations on the basis that their business models are incompatible with the pledge by the world’s governments to tackle global warming. But the GPFG is the highest profile institution to divest to date.
A series of analyses have shown that only a quarter of known and exploitable fossil fuels can be burned if temperatures are to be kept below 2C, the internationally agreed danger limit. Bank of England governor Mark Carney, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and others have warned investors that action on climate change would leave many current fossil fuel assets worthless.
“Our risk-based approach means that we exit sectors and areas where we see elevated levels of risk to our investments in the long term,” said Marthe Skaar, spokeswoman for GPFG, which has $40bn invested in fossil fuel companies. “Companies with particularly high greenhouse gas emissions may be exposed to risk from regulatory or other changes leading to a fall in demand.”
She said GPFG had divested from 22 companies because of their high carbon emissions: 14 coal miners, five tar sand producers, two cement companies and one coal-based electricity generator. In addition, 16 coal miners linked to deforestation in Indonesia and India were dumped, as were two US coal companies involved in mountain-top removal. The GPFG did not reveal the names of the companies or the value of the divestments.
“One of the largest global investment institutions is winding down its coal interests, as it is clear the business model for coal no longer works with western markets already in a death spiral, and signs of Chinese demand peaking,” said James Leaton, research director at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, which analyses the risk of fossil fuel assets being stranded.
A report by Goldman Sachs in January also called time on the use of coal for electricity generation: “Just as a worker celebrating their 65th birthday can settle into a more sedate lifestyle while they look back on past achievements, we argue that thermal coal has reached its retirement age.” Goldman Sachs downgraded its long term price forecast for coal by 18%.
On Wednesday, a group of medical organisations called for the health sector to divest from fossil fuels as it had from tobacco. The £18bn Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s biggest funders of medical research , said “climate change is one of the greatest challenges to global health” but rejected the call to divest or reveal its total fossil fuel holdings.
In January, Axa Investment Managers warned the reputation of fossil fuel companies were at immediate risk from the divestment campaign and Shell unexpectedly backed a shareholder demand to assess whether the company’s business model is compatible with global goals to tackle climate change.
Note: The first line originally said 40 coal mining companies had been dropped, instead of the correct number of 32. A further eight companies were dropped due to their greenhouse gas emissions: five tar sand producers, two cement companies and one coal-based electricity generator.
Repost from Health & Safety Executive (HSE), Great Britain [Editor: CONTEXT – I received this in an email from Fred Millar, independent consultant and expert on chemical safety and railroad transportation. Fred’s email comment puts the British commentary in a “North American oil-train” perspective: “Impact of falling oil prices may be quite small re volumes of Crude By Rail shipments, some informed observers have noted. But this UK HSE message highlights a likely, less visible but no less ominous impact: dangerous lowering of safety standards in the oil industry [and by implication in the newly important “pipeline on rails” railroads carrying crude oil and other hazmat]. If this impact had not been seen previously at significant levels by safety agencies, there would be no need for such blunt alarums, of course.” – RS]
No Compromise
By Judith Hackitt, HSE Chair, 2/6/15
The impacts of falling oil prices is having a wide ranging effect in the UK – from the lower cost of filling up the car to people’s livelihoods being under threat.
It is inevitable companies seek to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and the decisions they are being forced to make are tough ones. It’s actually a stress test of leadership and senior management.
Part of that test is whether company decision makers have all the relevant information to make informed decisions.
How can they?
At the very least they have to make assumptions about what the future will look like. In this case, how long oil prices will stay at these levels? What decisions are competitor companies and industries taking? After all, they need to be making the right decisions for the company in the short term and for the mid to long term.
We’ve been here before, of course, in the 1990s when oil prices dropped and assumptions were made about the long term life of North Sea assets that proved to be wide of the mark. So this is a time when corporate memory really counts.
On that occasion the assumption was made that North Sea production would be wound down in the medium term and assets could afford to be neglected because they would soon be out of service. As prices rose again, the assets were called upon to continue to produce and many are now operating well beyond their original life expectancy. Doing that has required huge effort by the North Sea Oil and Gas industry to bring those neglected assets back up to the required standard.
Those who have led this effort to improve asset integrity deserve to be praised, but their voices need to continue to be heard as we go through this next difficult phase for the industry.
Cutting costs where there seems to be least tangible day-to-day effect is obviously tempting but leaders and senior managers need to pass the stress test on knowing where health and safety – and particularly process safety and asset integrity – sits in this mix.
Asset integrity must not suffer from short term expediency over where the axe falls. Leadership is critical to avoid wrong assumptions being made about the lifespan of assets, assumptions we know from previous experience can take years to reverse.
Current news headlines may be disconcerting, but I want all industries dealing with process safety to avoid inadvertently writing tomorrow’s headlines today.
Safety must not be compromised, even in tough times.
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