oil

The UK government has spent nearly £4 billion pounds of UK public funding on fossil fuel infrastructure in the global south since the Paris Agreement was signed.

Donald Trump’s administration is sweeping away environmental regulations that protect you, America and the world from pollution.

BP offers business-as-usual dividend payout despite historic drop in profits.

UK government admits BP drilling permit process was unlawful. Greenpeace will now apply to have BP’s permit quashed on climate grounds.

Big oil ramps up efforts to gag climate campaigners as BP’s rig operator Transocean takes on Greenpeace in court.

BP deal criticised by artists in British Museum's new exhibition.

The UK government has endorsed plans by oil giant Shell to leave some decommissioned North Sea oil infrastructure in place.

Oil and gas explorers are gearing up to drill offshore Ireland in a bid to boost its energy independence from Britain.

Environmental and human rights campaigners write to oil giant Shell threatening legal action in bid to stop catastrophic climate breakdown.

Hydraulic fracturing is still a ‘known unknown' in South Africa's ongoing energy debate. And whilst two weeks ago communities in the KwaZulu-Natal province made it clear they don't want fracking, President Jacob Zuma does. Jasper Finkeldey reports

New Scientist Live at London's ExCel Centre is described by its organisers as 'a festival of ideas and discovery'. But the popular magazine has had a particularly bad idea already – the festival's sponsors, argues CLAIRE JAMES

ExxonMobil has been funding high quality science while also funding and supporting climate denial. So should scientists continue to accept money from oil companies and other vested interests? KATHARINE HAYHOE, a climate science professor, discusses her own early ExxonMobil funding and the ethical issues it raises

Environmental campaigning groups including Greenpeace and WWF publish a joint report today calling on the UK Government to bring forward the proposed ban on petrol and electric cars to 2030.
JOE WARE reports

We’re 55 million years too late for hydraulic fracturing to work in the UK, claims Professor John Underhill, the chief scientist at Heriot-Watt University. BRENDAN MONTAGUE reports

There will be enough fossil fuel-burning stuff - cars, homes, factories, power plants - built by next year to blow through our carbon budget for a 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise. Never mind staying below a safer, saner 1.5 degrees of global warming, warns STEPHEN LEAHY

A new report about to be released shows methane leaks from active and abandoned wells in British Columbia are more than twice as high as government estimates making them more polluting than commercial transportation, writes ANDREW NIKIFORUK

Ecuador is the latest country to tear up 'free trade' agreements that have so far cost the country $21 billion in damages awarded to foreign companies by 'corporate courts', and yielded next to nothing in return, writes Nick Dearden. So the outgoing President Correa did the only sensible thing: in one of his final executive acts this month, he scrapped 16 toxic trade and investment treaties.

With oil prices remaining low, the world's oil industry is facing bleak years ahead, writes Paul Brown. The global push to decarbonise the economy, combined with surging renewable energy and the trend to more efficient and electric vehicles, is denting investor confidence and pointing to the shrinking away of a once mighty and profitable industry.

President Trump's recent executive order could open an area of America's most precious landscapes bigger than Yellowstone to oil drilling and coal mining, write Lawrence Carter & Joe Sandler Clarke. The 27 monuments 'under review' harbour huge volumes of oil, gas and coal: just what's needed to fuel Trump's vision of fossil fuel-led development - never mind the cost to scenery, wildlife, historic sites and indigenous cultures.

Mexico's oil looks set to run out within a decade, writes Jeremy Leggett, and it can hardly rely on Trump's America to make up the difference. But Mexico enjoys abundant sunshine, and the cost of solar power generation is falling fast. Let Trump tie America's economy to debt-financed fossil fuels. Mexico's future prosperity will come from harnessing its inexhaustible solar riches.

British firms lie deep at the heart of the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, writes Amy Hall. Barclays, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland have lent $800m to Energy Transfer Partners and its subsidaries, London-based Commercial Bank of China has loaned $120m, and RBS $250m, while HSBC and Barclays own over $110m worth of shares in project partner Phillips 66.

The whole idea of North Sea oil was to make Britain rich, writes Simon Evans. At least that's how it all began. But now ... it cost UK taxpayers a massive £396 million a year in tax breaks and subsidies to keep the industry alive last year. And there's no reason to think that's going to turn around any time soon.

A unique and pristine coral reef in the mouth of the Amazon is threatened by oil drilling planned by oil giants Total and BP, say the scientists who recently explored it. But the oil companies are determined to press ahead despite the risks, writes Lawrence Carter, and Brazil's environment ministry is set to give its approval.