Labour MPs fear No 10 team lack up-to-date energy insight and don’t fully recognise voters’ climate concerns
Andy Burnham was told he could face the first revolt of his premiership as Labour MPs and climate experts condemned his apparent support for renewed drilling for oil and gas.
As the UK suffers through drought, fires and heatwaves, the prime minister gave the strongest indication yet on Friday he was minded to allow new drilling. His comments came just hours before the UN secretary-general warned “every new fossil fuel project” made heatwaves more dangerous.
Don’t worry about the death toll and economic devastation. There’s money to be made!
As the United States launches a “heavy wave” of strikes against Iran, a conflict that turned from a limited incursion into an extremely expensive and painfully drawn-out war, some clear winners are starting to emerge — and we’re definitely not talking about the American people.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, British fossil fuel giant Shell is reaping enormous profits thanks to spiking oil prices triggered by the conflict in Iran. Its second-quarter adjusted earnings rose from just shy of $7 billion the previous quarter to a stunning $9.84 billion in the most recent one. That’s well above already-lofty expectations from analysts, who predicted earnings of $8.92 billion. It’s also double compared to the same period last year, indicating a major surge in profits, in large part due to the violence in Iran.
Shell isn’t alone in the oil industry. Both Chevron and ExxonMobil are expected to report “monster earnings,” as CNBC put it, later this week.
Beyond the oil and gas industry, major banks including JPMorgan are making record profits during the ongoing war thanks to heavy trading volumes as investors rush to dump volatile assets or buy the dip.
Then there’s the Department of Defense’s many contractors, which are also seeing strong growth in sales and profits. Three of the biggest defense contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, reported record sales backlogs boosted by the Iran war earlier this year, from anti-ballistic missile systems to Patriot drones and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
In short, it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see who the real winners and losers of Trump’s prolonged war are. It’s a conflict lining the pockets of the military industrial complex and fossil fuel companies — the last thing a society suffering the effects of human-induced climate change and reeling from political instability needs.
PM tells reporters the government cannot ignore the energy resource ‘when people are struggling’
Andy Burnham has said he will take a “pragmatic” approach to oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, saying the government could not ignore the potential energy resources it holds.
The prime minister’s comments came in response to a question about his conversation with Donald Trump on his first day in No 10. Trump had said Burnham told him he would “open up” North Sea oil, something the UK summary of the call made no mention of.
Environmentalists renew calls for windfall tax to support households after Q2 earnings rise to almost $10bn
Shell has posted its second highest quarterly earnings on record as the energy market surge caused by the Middle East crisis helped to double its net profit to almost $10bn in the three months to June.
Europe’s biggest oil and gas company reported a quarterly profit of $9.8bn (£7.4bn), more than double the figure for the second quarter last year and the highest since its record-high earnings in the months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Leading Australian climate policy experts say a new oil refinery in Western Australia would be an investment in “dinosaur technology” that would require public subsidy and do little to solve the country’s fuel security.
Experts told Guardian Australia doing the feasibility study was not a bad idea, but would ultimately show the project would be uneconomic and would require government subsidies.
At Branxton community hall in the New South Wales Hunter Valley last week, local resident Janet Murray was given five minutes to speak about plans for the state’s biggest coalmine extension.
Before her were dozens of people, also there to share their views about whether the 19-year extension proposed by Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) should be allowed to proceed.
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