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Dealing with Climate Change & Justice

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  • Started 2 years ago by chdot
  • Latest reply from neddie
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  1. chdot
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  2. chdot
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  3. chdot
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  4. LaidBack
    Member

    OVO enjoying the green revolution by closing Perth operation with loss of 700 jobs.
    I noticed last year that they had eradicated the word Hydro on their Hydro plants. 'SSE renewables' now. Customers get bills on SSE or OVO letterheads. Scottish Hydro is still one of their many companies.

    OVO Energy is to close its Perth site later this year putting around 700 jobs at risk. It comes two years after the firm took over SSE’s household supply division and promised staff then there ‘would be no change’. Huge blow to workers and the economy. https://t.co/Tpq2jzX9M3

    Posted 2 years ago #
  5. chdot
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    The government has admitted that its efforts to insulate the UK from climate change impacts have been inadequate.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60026378

    Posted 2 years ago #
  6. chdot
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  7. LaidBack
    Member

    Yesterday big auction of wind farm sites from Crown Estate Scotland. Some reckon sold plots too cheap. Scotland has a large amount of Europe's wind hence many investors are from there. Extract from National.

    In fact, around 20% of all capacity through ScotWind will go to companies synonymous with big oil, none of which are headquartered in this country. BP and TotalEnergies were also successful and of the £700m expected to be paid to the Scottish Government, one third of this will come from such companies through the consortia they’re involved in.

    BP is to work with Germany’s EnBW, while French multinational Total’s project partners include Macquarie Corporate Holdings Pty of Australia and Siemens Energy of Germany.

    Scottish firms will get a share of the profits, but undoubtedly smaller than these giants. Stornoway Port Authority and Kishorn Port are to benefit, as are Eneus Energy of Edinburgh and Inverness-based TTI Marine Renewables.

    Nonetheless, MSPs including Labour’s Mercedes Villalba think more public benefit could have been wrung from the leasing round. “Our renewable energy capability is being used to generate private profit for multinationals and overseas governments while workers in the oil and gas industry are facing unemployment,” she said. “We must make offshore wind leases contingent on local job creation and trade union recognition.”

    I hear oil price is back up at 87USD a barrel. So big oil is not short of money.
    All this energy wealth in one place... imagine.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  8. chdot
    Admin

    I’m not sure “too cheap” is the real issue.

    More about ensuring that subsequent profits are properly taxed.

    Might have been better to ensure that there was a manufacturing and supply system that didn’t rely on the same old multinationals.

    In other news, court case against North Sea oil extractors lost because judge believes they will implement carbon capture.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  9. neddie
    Member

    around 20% of all capacity through ScotWind will go to companies synonymous with big oil

    What's to stop big oil from simply sitting on these rights and never developing them? They could simply leave them as is to keep people further locked into fossil dependency.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  10. chdot
    Admin

    “What's to stop big oil from simply sitting on these rights and never developing them?”

    Good question.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  11. chdot
    Admin


    Scottish Power, owned by Spanish energy conglomerate Iberdrola, emerged as the auction’s single largest winner after scooping up seabed rights to develop up to 7GW of offshore wind capacity alongside its partners – enough to power 8.5m UK homes.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/17/scottish-government-windfarm-auction-scottish-power-shell-bp-sse

    I’m sure this has been answered before -

    What proportion of (‘average’) household energy use is electricity?

    Also (in roughest terms) how does home use compare with transport use?

    Clearly more renewable electricity is a good thing (probably!) but is the aim now to generate electricity (for use directly or via storage methods) or create hydrogen - for heat/transport etc?

    Posted 2 years ago #
  12. Yodhrin
    Member

    @chdot "carbon capture" - that's grounds for appeal surely, it's a completely unproven technology with substantial technical hurdles that may never prove "commercially viable", and there's absolutely no legal or regulatory requirement for them to actually implement it, so how in the bejesus can a judge use their irrational personal faith it will happen as a basis for a legal decision?

    Posted 2 years ago #
  13. PS
    Member

    “What's to stop big oil from simply sitting on these rights and never developing them?”

    Profit.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  14. MediumDave
    Member

    """Should any application not progress to signing a full agreement, the next highest scoring application will instead be offered an option. """

    https://www.crownestatescotland.com/news/scotwind-offshore-wind-leasing-delivers-major-boost-to-scotlands-net-zero-aspirations

    In theory at least if the bidder can't get their development through planning (and then built), they won't keep the seabed lease. Whether that means anything in practice...we'll see.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  15. neddie
    Member

    @MediumDave

    I read "full agreement" to mean signing off on the lease as negotiated, not the actual development. I can't see any clause that says they'll lose the rights if they fail to develop.

    @PS

    It could be more profitable to block others from entering the renewables market, allowing big oil to sell more of their core product, which is fossil oil and fossil gas. If I were government, I'd want a sunset clause with hefty penalties if they fail to develop, but I don't see anything like that, and knowing our government they won't have bothered for fear of upsetting the big oil.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  16. neddie
    Member

    That money buys the right to develop those areas of seabed within 10 years. If that isn't achieved, Crown Estate Scotland regains that right, to sell it again

    (from the BBC)

    OK, so I answered my own question

    Posted 2 years ago #
  17. chdot
    Admin

    Reaching net zero climate emissions by 2050 will require a “fundamental transformation of the global economy”, according to a report by McKinsey, one of the world’s most influential consulting firms.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/25/transformation-global-economy-net-zero-mckinsey

    Posted 2 years ago #
  18. chdot
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  19. chdot
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  20. chdot
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    For example, Shell’s Drive Carbon Neutral scheme tells businesses that by buying fuel on its loyalty card, the “unavoidable” emissions from their fleets of vehicles can be offset “through Shell’s global portfolio of nature-based solutions projects”. It assures customers that, by joining the programme, “you don’t even have to change the way you work”. Similar claims by Shell in the Netherlands were struck down by the country’s advertising watchdog.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/26/carbon-offsetting-environmental-collapse-carbon-land-grab

    Posted 2 years ago #
  21. chdot
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  22. chdot
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  23. chdot
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  24. chdot
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  25. chdot
    Admin

    Though several months have passed since the expedition, I still sometimes see polar bears in decaying windows before my eyes when falling asleep. And looking at the main photo in my life at the moment, the one named House of Bears, I think that sooner or later all human-made things on Earth will cease to exist – buildings, cars and computers will all meet their end. But life is eternal. These bears will continue to hunt, swim among ice floes and explore islands even when civilization ceases to exist. But life will remain eternal only if we humans finally begin to take care of the planet and the living creatures that need our protection.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/polar-bears-move-into-abandoned-arctic-weather-station-photo-essay

    Posted 2 years ago #
  26. chdot
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  27. chdot
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  28. chdot
    Admin

    Thomas Day of NewClimate Institute, who compiled the report, said that taken in aggregate, the efforts of the 25 companies studied would make little impact. “It is not clear these reductions take us beyond business as usual,” he said. “We were very disappointed and surprised at how much room for improvement there was [among the companies studied]. Companies need to be much more transparent about these goals.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/06/amazon-ikea-nestle-biggest-carbon-net-zero-claims

    Posted 2 years ago #
  29. chdot
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  30. chdot
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