Pledges: Fossil Fuels
#2 in the series!
Last time was Cats & Dogs. Today it’s a different topic.
Pledge: Fossil Fuels
The email:
Dear Karl Drinkwater,
I hope this finds you well.
I am a voter in the constituency where you are running for election and I am writing now to politely request that you sign Fossil Free Parliament’s election pledge. The pledge is for all parliamentary candidates, and calls on you to commit to cut fossil fuel interests out of politics; and take a first step towards this by rejecting all offers of benefits from the fossil fuel industry and its representatives, both during your election campaign and during your time as a sitting MP, should you be elected.
Through political donations and gifts, sponsored events aimed at policymakers, incredibly frequent meetings with Ministers, and lucrative job offers, the fossil fuel industry takes and creates every opportunity to maintain a close relationship with policymakers, and thus protect its interests.
This may sound like run of the mill corporate lobbying, which could be described as part of a "healthy democracy", but when it comes to the fossil fuel industry - it's very dangerous.
For decades, the fossil fuel industry has been driving up emissions, while perniciously spreading disinformation about the climate crisis and its part in creating it. This is still the case today. While the industry projects itself as part of the green energy transition, its biggest players - such as Shell, BP and Equinor - are failing to align their operations with international climate agreements and are expanding their extraction and burning of fossil fuels. (Oil Change International, ‘Big Oil Reality Check’, 2024).
Take Equinor, for example - the majority owner of the yet-undeveloped Rosebank oil field in the North Sea, which will release 200 million tonnes of carbon emissions should it become fully operational. Equinor’s marketing department presents the company as “committed to the energy transition”, but in 2023, according to its annual report, 99.85% of the energy it produced was in fossil fuels. In fact, last year the Advertising Standards Authority banned the company from repeating its suggestion that wind farms play a balanced role in its energy mix, stating that the adverts “exaggerated the contribution that lower-carbon initiatives played” in the companies’ activities. In response to the ASA’s ruling, Equinor admitted to the regulator that the adverts were aimed at policymakers (‘UK advertising watchdog bans Equinor from repeating green claims’ Financial Times, 22 December 2023).
Equinor’s misleading adverts represent just the tip of the iceberg of tactics the fossil fuel industry employs to influence policymakers in its favour. Donations are another such tactic. Since the 2019 general election, the Conservative Party has received more than £2 million in donations from fossil fuel companies, their executives, and those with a financial interest in oil and gas (see DeSmog’s article from 23 May 2024) . In that time, the Government has reneged on multiple climate policies and issued hundreds of new licences for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. This is in contravention of the Climate Change Committee’s position that new fossil fuel production is “not in line with Net Zero”, which the UK is legally-bound to achieve by 2050 (CCC, Progress Report to Parliament, 2023).
Furthermore, even in instances where progress appears to have been made towards regulating the fossil fuel industry’s activities for the public good, the industry has had a hand in limiting the regulation’s impact. When the Government first introduced the prospect of a “windfall tax” on oil and gas profits after Russia invaded Ukraine, the fossil fuel lobby went into overdrive. The leading industry lobby group, Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), and its operator members - which include the likes of Shell, BP and Equinor - leveraged their privileged access to policymakers to make the proposal as industry-friendly as possible. In June 2022, when the government held its official consultation on the windfall tax, OEUK and its operator members had 28 meetings with Ministers - more than one every working day. When the tax policy was finalised in July, it contained loopholes and provisions that reflected requests made by OEUK in those meetings and associated letters - such as the protection of Petroleum Revenue Tax refunds relating to decommissioning, which effectively results in HMRC giving public money to oil and gas companies, thanks to a tax break that means oil rig decommissioning expenditure reduces companies’ taxable profits (see Fossil Free Parliament’s peer-reviewed report: ’Uncovered: How opaque groups and privileged access enabled the fossil fuel industry to derail the windfall tax’ 24 October 2023).
So long as the fossil fuel industry continues to enjoy such a close relationship with policymakers, the development of effective climate policy will be hindered at every turn. As each year breaks temperature records, and extreme weather events increase in frequency and severity, causing death and devastation, we cannot afford any more fossil fuel industry-induced delays to the action we need to limit global temperatures to 1.5 degrees.
This is why I am writing to you now about Fossil Free Parliament’s pledge. We need to seize the opportunity presented by this election to transform how our political system treats the fossil fuel industry. Just as has been done with the tobacco industry, engagements with the fossil fuel industry must henceforth be treated with extreme caution - in recognition of the fact that the industry’s interests are completely antithetical to public and environmental wellbeing.
Will you sign the pledge and commit to cutting the fossil fuel industry’s interests out of our politics, should you be elected? And start to do this now by publicly pledging to reject any offers of donations, gifts or other benefits from the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates?
You can read and sign the pledge here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/fossil-free-parliaments-election-pledge/
Thank you kindly for considering my request, and I look forward to hearing your response soon.
My thoughts:
I agree with these sentiments so much!
Fun fact: I do not own a car and never have, for environmental reasons. I travel everywhere by public transport, or cycling, or running. Our culture is addicted to fossil fuels, and I realised early on I would try and cut that out of my life where possible. I even supported FE colleges around Wales without ever driving a car! An Ethical Consumer article once covered some of the ways I live by my principles.
I regularly refer to that kind of lobbying as bribery, because that’s what it is: money and privileges and promises in exchange for favours. Despicable and greedy. In my blog post recently I even added to my personal statement that “I can’t be bought or bribed.”
Yes, there are challenges. As a society we use far too much energy, often wastefully. And there are far too many of us, which multiplies that usage. One of my dreams is microgeneration within communities, solar panels on more roofs with feed-in tariffs that actually pay back a fairer proportion of what the electricity companies make. As I wrote:
"Did you know that at present private electricity companies charge you about 24.50p/kWh for electricity, but only pay 4p or less for electricity provided by local generation? As ever, the broken system has been twisted to make the wealthy shareholders even richer."
As you can tell, I am no ally to the fossil fuel industry, and those politicians who are in their pockets should be ashamed.
I’ll end with some strong words from UN Secretary General António Guterres yesterday as he called for the world’s fossil fuel industries to be banned from advertising and described the coal, oil and gas corporations as the “godfathers of climate chaos” who had distorted the truth and deceived the public for decades. I couldn’t agree more.
Inequality is one of the core forms of injustice. We have a fight on our hands to undo what the politicians have been allowing for decades.
You will find more about the Green Party attitude to fossil fuels in our manifesto.
Update 2024-06-12
Although I agreed with the goals I hadn’t signed the pledge. I explained to the Fossil Free Parliament (FFP) campaigner that I did seriously consider signing the pledge at first, but there are questions about procedure that I’m unsure of at present. It may be that donations go to the Green Party and I won’t even know about many of them, so wouldn’t have a way of cancelling or returning them. I wouldn’t want to pledge something and then get it used against me by opponents when it isn’t something I can control. Or, conversely, what if something bonkers happened like a fossil fuel-connected company donating a huge amount of money to the Greens, and I could just transfer it straight to Greenpeace, FOE, or another good organisation so it could be used to campaign against fossil fuels? I can’t see it happening because the donor wouldn’t get anything back, but can that kind of situation occur? For example, I would never go in McDonalds (I am a vegan and also believe in supporting only local, independent businesses). But if McDonalds made the mistake of giving me twenty grand, I could pass it on to VIVA! or PETA or the Vegan Society or something, to fund campaigning they could never afford to do. My ethical goals would actually end up being better achieved, whilst I’d still happily then criticise the fossil fuel industry or McDonalds. I like the idea of objectionable organisations funding their own opposition!
FFP thanked me for my thoughtful reply and pointed out that in the Notes to their pledge text they had tried to address most of these concerns: it only applies to donations, gifts, etc. that an MP receives directly, not that their Party receives, and if they unwittingly accept a donation, they have the option of returning it.
They haven’t addressed the option of re-donating the sum elsewhere, but it could arguably be counted as a “return” of the donation. That being said, they think it is more impactful, overall, for policymakers to reject dodgy donations, and they can’t encourage re-donating because that then opens up a whole other can of worms about which causes should be supported with that money. They pointed out also that 19 of my Green Party colleagues had already signed the pledge. :-)
My minor concerns were assuaged, so I have now signed it and added this note: “That kind of lobbying seems like bribery: money, privileges and promises in exchange for favours. Despicable and greedy, it has no place in progressive politics. It's our role to represent people and planet, not the corrupt.”
2024-06-12 A Related Request
Dear Karl / Annwyl Karl,
I am writing to you on behalf of Divest Cymru, a grassroot group working to stop the Wales Pension Partnership, and the eight local authority pension funds, from buying shares in coal, gas and oil.
Unless we stop putting our money into fossil fuels the climate crisis will only intensify. Yet, workers` pension contributions continue to be invested in what is now acknowledged to be the key driver towards an unpredictable and unstable climate. Recent research has revealed that UK council pension funds hold £16 billion of investments in global fossil fuel corporations. Instead, they could be investing locally in cheap, clean energy and warmer homes; helping accelerate the transition to a liveable and just future, rather than undermining it.
This election is the time to call a halt to this madness. We ask you to show your commitment to stop investments in the world’s biggest polluters and to lend your support to using this money in our local economy for the good not only for the pension fund holders but for all of us.
We are writing to you to ask if you would agree to publicly back the following pledge:
“If elected, I will do all I can to ensure that council pension funds in Wales end investment in fossil fuels within the next five years and instead invest in renewable energy and the local economy".
"Os caf fy ethol, byddaf yn gwneud popeth o fewn fy ngallu i sicrhau bod cronfeydd pensiwn cynghorau Cymru yn rhoi’r gorau i fuddsoddi mewn tanwyddau ffosil o fewn y pum mlynedd nesaf ac yn hytrach yn buddsoddi mewn ynni adnewyddadwy a’r economi leol.”
My answer:
It won't surprise you to know where I stand on this issue as a Green, and as an environmentalist! It crosses over with my recent post about not taking bribes from the fossil fuel industry, but I regularly cover these environmental issues relating to energy. E.g. my post against nuclear power, my carbon footprint, and my defence of renewables where I say:
“In brief, we need renewables, with local micro generation for local use, funds for setting it up, and fair compensation feed-in tariffs for generated electricity from electricity companies (not the pittance they pay). Did you know that at present private electricity companies charge you about 24.50p/kWh for electricity, but only pay 4p or less for electricity provided by local generation? As ever, the broken system has been twisted to make the wealthy shareholders even richer.”
I was totally opposed to government attempts to stop councils from boycotting investments that are connected with things they disagree with. The attempt was made to stop them from boycotting Israeli goods (until Israel ceases its occupation of Palestinian territory), but if it had been successful it would no doubt have been extended to stop councils from being able to divest from any source on ethical grounds, including fossil fuels.
As I made clear in my Ethical Consumer article, money is how we can have a direct influence on companies and governments by voting with our wallets. Boycotts and divestment is a key part of that, and it should be used at every level to make the world a better place. Individuals and councils should absolutely boycott harmful and negative income streams. At the same time, they should be encouraged to invest in ethical sources, to bring about the kind of world we want to see.
I hope that reassures you of where I stand on this issue!
2024-06-13 Another Request
Dear Karl Drinkwater ,
I live in your constituency and I am writing to you ahead of the General Election to urge you in the strongest possible terms, to pledge your support for stopping new oil and gas and a rapid and just transition to renewable energy. Here’s why.
Scientists have warned time and time again that we can't allow any more new oil and gas if we are to keep within safe climate limits. Adding new reserves will push us closer to parts of our world becoming uninhabitable.
New oil and gas fields like the recently approved Rosebank oil field won’t do anything to lower our energy bills, or make our energy supply safer. Most of the UK’s oil and gas is sold on the open international market to the highest bidder, bringing in profit for oil and gas companies like Rosebank’s owners Equinor and Ithaca, whilst millions of people across the country struggle to pay their energy bills. Rosebank would be catastrophic for our climate if the potentially unlawful plans to develop it go ahead.
Rosebank will also have a gas pipeline running through a marine protected area and poses a direct threat to species including whales and dolphins that call that area home.
Every moment we delay in making a just transition to renewable energy counts. New fields like Rosebank won’t protect workers in places like Aberdeen who want to see an acceleration of the transition to decent unionised green jobs.
As a parliamentary candidate in my constituency, I call on you to:
- Stop the Rosebank oil field and commit to doing everything you can to block its reckless development.
- Support an end to new oil and gas production, in line with what’s required to prevent further catastrophic climate breakdown.
- Focus on the real solutions to tackle Britain’s broken energy system: scaling up renewables and insulating our leaky homes.
- Back a plan for a just and fully-funded transition for oil and gas workers and the communities that depend on them, which must get into the specifics of where and how jobs will be created, backed up with investment, as well as making it easier for workers to retrain, providing job guarantees, and improving the quality of offshore energy jobs.
In the face of a warming world filled with climate-induced floods, droughts, famine and untold suffering, I’m outraged that new fields like Rosebank could be allowed to go ahead. At this General Election, candidates like you will be judged on what you will do to address the climate crisis and fix our broken energy system. Will you be the champion that our constituency needs?
My answer: I’ve been a vegan environmental activist since 1989, so environmental topics are my life. I’ve been campaigning on green issues all that time, from global ones to more local ones such as protecting green spaces or removing fly-tipped rubbish from the river. You’ll get a feel for my opinions on my site. I won’t bore you by attaching press cuttings and articles, but I have a lot! :-)
I’m sure you're aware that the Greens are aligned with you, and our manifesto matches your goals. In terms of fossil fuels, I wrote this post about our statements on the fossil fuel industry and my personal opinions. That should reassure you that I am no friend of fossil fuels, and dream of a renewable energy future!
Promoted by Karl Drinkwater (Green Party) at The Gate, Keppoch Street, Cardiff CF24 3JW.