Climate

The oil and natural gas industry is facing two huge challenges, improving competitiveness and managing a transition toward a low carbon future, which combined represent “quite a frightening cocktail if we do not manage them in a proper way,” Statoil ASA’s CEO said.

The oil and natural gas industry is facing two huge challenges, improving competitiveness and managing a transition toward a low carbon future, which combined represent "quite a frightening cocktail if we do not manage them in a proper way," Statoil ASA's CEO said.

A 16-word amendment to the Keystone XL bill recognizing that climate change is real but not specifying a cause passed with nearly unanimous support in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday. But five other amendments, including two that put the blame for climate change squarely on “human activities,” foundered.

President Obama devoted several minutes of his penultimate State of the Union address to climate change Tuesday night, giving only two brief nods to domestic oil and gas production and only a passing reference to Congress working on a bill authorizing construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, despite his threat of a veto.

While making little mention of energy, except for renewables, and totally ignoring hydraulic fracturing (fracking), California Gov. Jerry Brown left no doubt in his state-of-the-state speech Monday that climate change will continue to dominate in his unprecedented fourth four-year term as governor. He called for dramatic increases in renewable energy use.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Thursday released updated and expanded draft guidance on how federal agencies should consider greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change when weighing development under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

One of the first families of Big Oil — that of Standard Oil Co. Inc. co-founder John D. Rockefeller — on Monday said its philanthropic fund was swearing off fossil fuels.

One of the first families of Big Oil — that of Standard Oil Co. Inc. co-founder John D. Rockefeller — on Monday said its philanthropic fund was swearing off fossil fuels.

The environmental virtues of cheap, abundant and clean-burning natural gas from shale plays are offset somewhat by methane emissions that occur during gas production and transport — but not so much as to sound alarms for Duke University researchers who have studied natural gas and climate change issues.