
Energy and Environment News
August 20, 2015
Top Stories
Energy Policy. According to the European Union’s energy and climate commissioner, the global climate deal designed to prevent worldwide temperatures from rising is under threat unless more countries submit emission-reduction targets and the region substantially accelerates technical negotiations. With just three months until the Paris Climate Conference, only 56 out of more than 190 countries have submitted targets. WSJ
Mining. Amid plunging commodity prices, mining companies are exploring low-margin operations as a source of new revenue, refining, blending, and trading ores themselves rather than leaving these tasks to multinational commodity traders as has historically been done. With industrial metals and coal at lows last seen during the financial crisis, the share prices of many companies have collapsed by more than half in the past year; however, due to oversupply, raw materials prices are likely to remain low for an extended period. WSJ
Energy Policy. The World Bank is aiming to set a global standard to stop the routine flaring of unwanted gas from oil wells. The Bank’s executives hope that the world’s largest oil-producing countries and companies will participate, and believe that the effort will help cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve access to energy in low-income countries. FT
Global Warming. According to a study published yesterday, scientists may have overstated China’s carbon dioxide emissions by more than 10 percent due to inaccurate assumptions about the country’s coal-burning activities. While the findings do not affect estimates of the total level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — an accumulation that is measured independently — they may affect discussions of how much relative responsibility China bears for global warming. NY Times
Oil. A federal auction in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday attracted the lowest interest from producers since 1986 — a clear sign that the fortunes of oil companies are worsening. The industry is beginning to sacrifice production out of concern that the oil price collapse will not rebound, but rather last through 2016 and 2017. NY Times