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Friends of the Earth (FOE)

Big Oil’s Hydrogen Hustle Exposed

By staff - Sunflower Alliance, March 27, 2024

The federal government is providing big bucks to projects that produce hydrogen as a “climate solution.” Most hydrogen produced today is fueled by fossil gas (methane) — so not really a solution at all.

Climate advocates have been advocating for “guardrails” on the program to make sure the hydrogen projects that receive federal money are really produced by new renewable energy.

But this report from Friends of the Earth reveals ways that Big Oil and other polluters are scheming to make the federal rules as lax as possible. They’re campaigning to add loopholes to the guardrails.

Under pressure from environmental groups, the Biden administration drafted guidelines for the federal subsidies that said qualifying hydrogen projects had to meet the requirements of the three guardrails. They had to be:

  • powered by renewable capacity built within three years of the hydrogen facility (additionality/incrementality)
  • connected to the same regional grid as the hydrogen production
    (regionality/deliverability)
  • able to match renewable energy usage on an hourly basis with hydrogen production, albeit starting in 2028 (time-matching).

Fossil interests are calling for the three guardrails to be removed, weakened to the point of irrelevance, or failing that, waived for ‘first mover’ projects. They’re hoping to grab federal money intended for green energy,

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

The Hydrogen Hustle

By staff - FracTracker Alliance, June 5, 2024

Key Findings

  • The DOE’s lack of transparency about ARCH2 prevents meaningful public feedback, leaving communities uninformed and unable to engage in decision-making.
  • Hydrogen blending raises safety concerns due to hydrogen embrittlement, potentially affecting pipelines, valves, and household appliances.
  • Reliance on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology introduces risks like subsurface carbon dioxide migration, posing threats to nearby communities.
  • Fracking for methane can lead to groundwater contamination, air pollution, and health effects for nearby communities.
  • While promising temporary jobs, ARCH2 is unlikely to generate significant long-term employment, potentially extending reliance on coal and gas industries and contributing to job and population loss.

Overview

The Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) project is a major initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy aimed at developing a hydrogen economy in the Appalachian region. However, despite promises of significant advancement in clean energy and economic growth, the project presents substantial risks to the environment and human health and safety.

This article is based on comments submitted to the Department of Energy (DOE) by FracTracker Alliance regarding the hub’s potential environmental, health, and economic impacts on local communities, including the lack of transparency from the DOE, the dangers associated with hydrogen blending, underground gas migration risks, and the impacts of continued reliance on fossil fuel extraction.

Twenty-Six Environmental Groups Call for Investigation into Kingspan’s Marketing Claims 

By staff - Clean Up Kingspan, January 22, 2024

Over two dozen environmental and community organizations – including Greenpeace, 350.org, Food and Water Watch, and the California Green New Deal Coalition – have issued a public letter calling on SCS Global Services to investigate the completeness and accuracy of claims made by insulation manufacturer Kingspan in an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for its star product, QuadCore insulated metal panels. SCS Global provided the third-party verification for the QuadCore EPD in 2022, but it has since acknowledged that it was not required to and did not perform a site audit to verify the information Kingspan submitted. 

Kingspan is a $15 billion global manufacturer of building products which presents itself as “Planet Passionate.” California-based SCS Global Services is one of the leading players offering environmental labeling and certification services including Fair Trade and Carbon Neutral Certifications.

In their open letter, the green groups note that the EPD omits mention of certain labor- and waste-intensive manufacturing processes that were at the center of an OSHA complaint filed by Kingspan workers in September 2023. This apparent omission is raising concerns that the increased demand for products with EPDs and the lack of site audits by third-party verifiers may be presenting an opportunity for greenwashing. 

Earthworkers Unite!

By members - Earthworks Unite, January 17, 2024

The following statement was issued on September 12, 2024

We, the eligible staff of Earthworks, are excited to announce that we have formed a union with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Earthworkers Unite. We ask that the Leadership Team (LT) and Board recognize Earthworkers Unite and agree to come to the bargaining table with us immediately. We currently have 21 workers signed up in the union, which we believe represents at least 77% of eligible staff.

We have formed this union in solidarity with our fellow workers, colleagues, and partners. Core to creating a just world is deep democracy and we cannot work towards this future without first modeling it within our own organization. We deserve a workplace where we are respected, empowered to create the strategy which determines our work, and know that when there is conflict there is a just and impartial process available to us. We believe deeply in the work we do and love the communities we work with, and have organized this union to do this work more sustainably and equitably. This announcement is an invitation for Earthworks to continue to align its actions with its mission to promote a just future and address systems of oppression both within and outside the organization.

We know Earthworks can and must be better for its workers and for the communities we serve. We can only effectively organize, advocate, or support partners when we are respected and supported by our workplace. We unionize in solidarity with peer organizations including the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, and the League of Conservation Voters, and the more than 9,000 workers IWW represents in the so-called United States. The next great labor movement is here, and we are proud to be a part of it.

Why the Climate Movement Is Supporting Auto Worker’s Fight for a Just Transition

By Sydney Ghazarian - Labor Network for Sustainability, August 17, 2023

Welcome everyone! My name is Sydney, I am an organizer with the Labor Network for Sustainability, and I am honored to facilitate tonight’s Solidarity Call for United Auto Workers Union, which is currently bargaining for a fair contract with the Big 3 Automakers- Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. 

What makes tonight’s call so special is that it’s a solidarity call by and for the climate movement because we recognize that UAW’s fight is our fight too.

What I love about the climate movement is that we are fighters. And our fight has spanned decades and across generations, and for the last several years, hundreds and thousands of us have rallied, door knocked, made calls, and done sit ins and direct actions to fight for a Green New Deal– which is a society-wide mobilization and just transition to decarbonize the economy while repairing historic harm and creating millions of high-paying, union jobs.

And I want to be clear: Without us fighting for a Green New Deal, there would be no Inflation Reduction Act and its historic investments in clean energy. But we also know that the IRA is not a Green New Deal, and falls desperately short of the Green New Deal’s vision of the world we are trying to build. Rather than massive investments in the public sector, frontline communities, and good, green, union jobs that uplift working people, the IRA invests primarily in private corporations– often the same ones responsible for perpetuating the climate crisis in the first place. 

Unlike the IRA, the Green New Deal understands that the implementation of climate policy, and how resources are distributed to achieve it, are key to ensuring climate justice and ensuring that millions of people are equipped to take that leap of faith away from fossil fuels and into a green economy. 

To The CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis:

By various - Labor Network for Sustainability, et. al., August 16, 2023

(Mary Barra, Jim Farley, and Carlos Tavares)

We, the undersigned climate, environmental, racial, and social justice organizations, stand in solidarity with auto workers and their union the United Auto Workers (UAW) in their upcoming contract negotiations with the “Big 3” automakers: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. We firmly support the UAW members’ demands and believe that the success of these negotiations is of critical importance for the rights and well-being of workers and to safeguard people and the environment. Only through meeting these demands will the United States ensure a just transition to a renewable energy future.

Lack of fair wages, job security, and dignified working conditions have left workers and our communities reeling. Worse, in recent months, workers and their communities have experienced unprecedented extreme heat, smoke pollution, flooding, and other disasters. The leaders of your companies have historically made decisions that exacerbated both of these crises over the past few decades — driving further inequality and increasing pollution. That is why we are standing in solidarity with the UAW and all workers and communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis and the necessary transition.

Within the next few years — the span of this next contract — lies humanity’s last chance to navigate a transition away from fossil fuels, including away from combustion engines. With that shift comes an opportunity for workers in the United States to benefit from a revival of new manufacturing, including electric vehicles (EVs) and collective transportation like buses and trains, as a part of the renewable energy revolution. This transition must center workers and communities, especially those who have powered our economy through the fossil fuel era, and be a vehicle for economic and racial justice. We are putting you on notice: Corporate greed and shareholder profits must never again be put before safe, good-paying union jobs, clean air and water, and a liveable future.

Green Jobs or Dangerous Greenwash?

By Tahir Latif, Claire James, Ellen Robottom, Don Naylor, and Katy Brown - Working People, July 7, 2023

Greenwash is not always easy to challenge: the claims to offer climate solutions; the PR offensive in local communities; and promises of 'green jobs' that in reality are neither as numerous or as environmentally friendly as promised.

But whether it’s a ‘zero carbon’ coal mine, heating homes with hydrogen, importing wood to burn in power stations, ‘sustainable aviation growth’ or offsetting, there are common themes that can give a reality check on greenwash claims and misleading jobs promises.

Speakers:

  • Claire James, Campaign against Climate Change
  • Ellen Robottom, Campaign against Climate Change trade union group
  • Don Naylor, HyNot (campaigning against HyNet greenwash and the Whitby hydrogen village)
  • Katy Brown, Biofuelwatch (using slides from Stuart Boothman, Stop Burning Trees Coalition who was unable to make it).

Pursuing a Just and Renewable Energy System: A Positive and Progressive Permitting Vision to Unlock Resilient Renewable Energy and Empower Impacted Communities

By staff - The Climate and Community Project, et. al., May 2023

It is indisputable that the climate emergency requires the United States to rapidly transform its majority fossil energy system to 100% clean and renewable energy.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent sixth synthesis report makes absolutely clear that an unprecedented bold transition to renewable energy with an equally aggressive effort to halt new fossil fuel development and phase out existing fossil fuel usage is absolutely vital to avoiding the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

This necessary transformation presents a tremendous opportunity to pursue a far more just path forward—one that ends the status quo entrenchment of the fossil fuel industry; empowers federal agencies to use their authorities to accelerate the transitions to a justly sourced, justly implemented, resilient, and equitable power system; actualizes the principles of environmental justice; and preserves our core environmental laws.

This system is composed of our most commonsense and affordable solutions that can be deployed in an efficient and just manner: energy conservation, distributed and resilient renewable energy and storage, and responsibly-sited utility-scale renewables, all paired with robust community engagement and opportunities for real energy democracy.

However, both Congress and the Biden administration are failing to exercise their imaginations to embed justice in a renewable energy future.

After the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, both Democratic and Republican Congress members have proposed numerous “permitting reform” proposals, but the majority continue to argue that achieving a fast transition to renewable energy necessarily means undermining bedrock environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

This false logic must be interrogated. While these proposals might marginally improve the deployment of utility-scale renewable energy particularly on pristine lands, our energy needs can and must also be met with renewable energy on built surfaces that is more resilient, affordable, and respectful toward communities and wildlands.

Furthermore, any such purported gains of “permitting reform” proposals would be massively dwarfed by the emissions of fossil fuel projects that would also be expedited and result in deepening substantial environmental injustices for countless communities around the nation.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

Reclaiming Our Energy

By Mary Church, Craig Dalzell, Roz Foyer, Sean Sweeney, Mika Minio-Paluello, et. al. - Just Transition Partnership, March 8, 2023

An online conference organised by the Just Transition Partnership to set out why public ownership of energy production and infrastructure is an essential part of any plans to hit climate change targets.

This event featured experts on how the privatised energy system is giving us fuel poverty, soaring energy prices and profits; and failing to deliver a Just Transition as well as reviewing the publicly-owned solutions in key sectors, from local to national levels.

Introduction: Mary Church - Reclaiming our Energy introduction

Offshore energy workers call for public ownership in UK’s net-zero carbon transition

By Alex Lawson - The Guardian, March 6, 2023

Coalition of workers, unions and climate campaigners aims to safeguard shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources.

Workers in the UK’s offshore oil, gas and renewables sector have called for public ownership of energy companies to ensure that the country’s transition to net zero protects jobs, communities and the environment.

The call comes amid a series of demands to government from a coalition of offshore workers, unions and climate campaigners that aim to shift the industry from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources.

A survey of 1,092 offshore workers for the wide-ranging report, Our Power: Offshore Workers, found that 90% of respondents backed its demands, which also include: government-backed jobs guarantees; an offshore training passport that supports workers to retrain in the renewables sector; a commitment to incentivise investment in ports and factories making products such as wind turbines; and equal pay for migrant workers.

Concerns are growing over the pace of Britain’s transition away from fossil fuels and its ability to create green jobs in manufacturing, production and operations. Data from the consultancy PwC shows the number of jobs being created in the renewable energy industry is growing four times faster than the overall UK employment market. But more than one-third of these roles are based in London and the south-east, particularly in professional and scientific roles.

The report argues that public ownership of energy firms would help to ensure a “just energy transition” offering greater job security and conditions. It paints a picture of long stints at sea and low pay in the face of the cost of living crisis, with British workers paid three times as much as migrant staff.

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