This comes at a time when the UN secretary general has declared "code red" for humanity, and the International Energy Agency has warned that new oil and gas fields are incompatible with the Paris agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.
To deliberately increase emissions in such circumstances is so contrary to the public good that it suggests a capture of politics by a powerful minority that represents fossil-fuel interests - the behaviour expected in a classic petrostate.
It does not seem to matter which party is in power. When the Democratic president Barack Obama was in the White House, he boasted that the US was pumping more oil than at any time in eight years. The Republican Trump picked up the pace. Then the Democrat Joe Biden opened the spigot even wider.
This story is from the August 02, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the August 02, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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