A major Canadian oil sands group has been running advertisements on Google that target people seeking information about oil industry “greenwashing,” the practice by which companies make false and misleading environmental promises.  The Pathways Alliance is a marketing and lobbying organization representing the country’s six largest oil sands producers: Imperial Oil, Suncor, ConocoPhillips, Cenovus, CNRL and MEG. Credit: Chris Russill Google ad records viewed by DeSmog show that it’s been paying to advertise on the search term “Pathways Alliance greenwashing,” meaning that when people typ ..read more

The new book by former Prime Minister Liz Truss urges the UK, U.S. and EU to drop their landmark climate change laws, spreads falsehoods about green policies, and fondly recalls an attempt to cancel a major climate conference. Truss, who is the Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, resigned as prime minister in October 2022 after just 49 days in office. Since leaving 10 Downing Street, Truss has attempted to expose the “deep state” forces that allegedly brought down her premiership, while advocating for “free market” ideas within the Conservative Party, helping to launch the Popular Conserv ..read more

A gathering of “Europe’s hard-right elite” held in Brussels today was organised by a fossil fuel funded think tank, DeSmog can reveal.  The National Conservatism (NatCon) conference was mired in controversy after the mayor of Brussels ordered police to shut down the event, leading to a standoff with its organisers.  The conference was due to be attended by critics of net zero policies and climate science, as well as radical right-wing figures from across Europe. French far-right politician Eric Zemmour was due to attend, alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely consid ..read more

A new campaign is calling on MPs to break the fossil fuel sector’s “chokehold” on politics in a critical election year. Lawmakers returning to work today (Monday) were greeted with smoke flares and a demand to “Stop Polluting Politics” from a banner hung off London’s Westminster Bridge. The message forms the name of the campaign by Climate Resistance, a new collective that aims “to push the fossil fuel lobby out of Westminster and stop polluters from bankrolling political parties”.  In 2019, under the Conservatives, the UK was the first country in the world to introduce legally binding c ..read more

A Conservative peer who is expected to join the board of broadcaster GB News has shares in Equinor, the oil and gas multinational behind the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea.  According to his parliamentary register of interests, Lord Theodore Agnew has shares of at least £100,000 in Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned energy producer. Equinor has a majority stake in the Rosebank North Sea oil field, which has been dubbed a “carbon bomb” by environmental law charity ClientEarth.  Agnew is set to replace hedge fund millionaire Paul Marshall on the board of GB News’s parent company ..read more

Leaders in the fight for clean air from Louisiana’s Cancer Alley joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Michael Regan on April 9 in Washington, D.C., for the announcement of a new rule governing air toxics-spewing chemical plants. The rule is intended to prevent cancer in surrounding low-income and minority communities. The announcement represents a milestone for environmental justice in communities historically overburdened by air-toxics pollution. But a growing number of proposed industrial projects threaten to further pollute the mostly low-income bl ..read more

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has today ruled that insufficient action to tackle climate change is a violation of human rights. In a historic judgement, the court ruled that Switzerland’s failure to do enough to cut its greenhouse gas emissions breached the rights to life and respect for family and private life of some of its most vulnerable citizens. It is the first time this court, which is responsible for interpreting the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty signed by all members of the Council of Europe (including the UK), has ruled on a climate change-related matter ..read more

Lobbyists for the world’s biggest meat companies have lauded a better than expected outcome at COP28, which they say left them “excited” and “enthusiastic” for their industry’s prospects. U.S. livestock bosses reflected on the conference’s implication for their sector on a virtual panel, fresh from “sharing U.S agriculture’s story” at the climate summit last December. Campaigners and climate scientists had hoped the summit – which was billed as a “Food COP” due to its focus on farming – would see governments agree to ambitious action to transform food systems in line with the goals of the Par ..read more

A senior figure at the influential Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank contributed to a new documentary that spread numerous myths about climate change.  Stephen Davies, an academic who has worked in educational outreach roles at the IEA since 2010, appeared several times in Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth – a new film directed by climate science denier Martin Durkin.  In the documentary, Davies claims that climate activists want to impose an “austere” life on ordinary people. “Behind all the talk about a climate emergency, climate crisis” is “an animus and hostility to ..read more

Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, a small number of fossil fuel entities — just 57 corporate and state producers — have been responsible for 80 percent of planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. And a majority of those actors have only expanded production in the intervening years. That’s according to a new report released today by InfluenceMap detailing its Carbon Majors project, an influential database of fossil fuel production data. The database analyzes the individual carbon emissions of 122 “carbon majors” — publicly owned corporations, nation states, and state-owned en ..read more