Published inLobbyWatch·Aug 21, 2021Welcome to the beginning of the fossil fuel endgameSome momentous news from the fossil fuel world, in recent weeks. BHP is planning to merge the oil and gas extraction part of its business with Australia’s biggest oil and gas company, Woodside. …Fossil Fuels12 min readFossil Fuels12 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Jul 10, 2021The Nordic Model: How Equinor is obscuring its fossil expansionI’m confident that the fossil fuel industry is the only powerful industry in the world that has convinced nearly everybody of their own powerlessness. They are not powerless. Companies that sell fossil fuels are very good at influencing demand for their product. …Equinor10 min readEquinor10 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Jun 7, 2021Carbon capture keeps proving its critics right. What comes next?The capability to capture carbon emissions created through the burning of fossil fuels has been of deep emotional and existential significance to fossil fuel industry executives, investors and defenders for many decades now. …Ccs7 min readCcs7 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Apr 29, 2021A major test for Shell’s massive multi-purpose greenwashing juggernautRecently, I wrote at LobbyWatch about how the gargantuan global oil and gas company Shell has been pivoting into an exhausting new way of defending its fossil fuel business. This, I described, is the Shell game — a pea and thimble trick to distract us. The heart of the problem…Shell12 min readShell12 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Mar 29, 2021AGL’s restructure does next to nothing for its climate problemsAt AGL Energy’s big ‘Investor Day’ event, the company announced a long-expected plan to deal with rising scrutiny of their extremely high emissions -splitting the company out into two halves and not changing emissions at all. …8 min read8 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Mar 3, 2021Net zero, avoided emissions and Hector the sentient lump of coalThere are a lot of empty maxims in the communications and climate advocacy space, but the truly solid one is that repetition is key. So, let’s say it again: the engine of climate change is the rapid accumulation of greenhouse gases inside the finite bucket that is the Earth’s atmosphere…Brookfield8 min readBrookfield8 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Feb 19, 2021Exxon deep dive part 2: Their product is the problemIn part 1 of this piece, I explored how the American oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil has, after decades of outright hostility, begrudgingly started clenching their teeth and pretending to care about climate. Much of that is being realised by focusing solely on the process of producing their products…Exxon6 min readExxon6 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Feb 19, 2021You need to know about the Shell gameThe phrase ‘shell game’ originates from a dazzling trick involving walnut shells and a pea. You put a pea under one of three, whizz them around, and then ask your watcher to nominate the shell with the pea under it. Of course, you’ve done some sleight of hand to misdirect…Shell8 min readShell8 min read
Published inLobbyWatch·Feb 11, 2021Exxon deep dive part 1: How a dangerous product is sold as safeYou’ll have noticed a theme in the work of ACCR, and that of LobbyWatch’s posts: climate delay. That’s when a company begrudgingly accepts the need for climate action, then calmly sets about making that action as hard, slow and complex as possible. A key part of this process is creating…Exxonmobil8 min readExxonmobil8 min read
Dec 22, 2020New packaging; same great taste: why fossil fuel companies can’t admit the problem is the productA helpful exercise for staying lucid while working constantly with climate and energy is trying to imagine how precisely the same problem you’re working on would be treated if it were in any other profession. Here’s an example. Companies extract and sell fossil fuels, which are later burned by their…Santos8 min readSantos8 min read
