After a year-long campaign by environmental justice activists, energy giants Duke and Dominion abruptly canceled their plans to build a fractured $ 8 billion, 600-mile gas pipeline on Sunday, quoting “Ongoing delays and increased cost uncertainty” as well as “litigation risk”.
The move, which came just a day before a court order to rule out another important fossil fuel pipeline, is a sign of the importance of grassroots opposition movements and their legal battles. And it’s also a sign that fossil fuels are a bad investment.
in a statementUS Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette blamed environmentalists for the project’s cancellation. “The well-funded obstructionist environmental lobby has successfully killed the pipeline on the Atlantic coast,” he said.
This is, of course, absurd. A 2018 report he found that fossil fuel representatives spend ten times more on lobbying than environmental defenders. The fact that the cancellation has occurred is a testament to the ability of environmental justice movements to overcome their weight, drawing strength from people rather than unlimited capital. But even more than that, the Trump administration’s statement is absurd because it does not mention that oil and gas are on the decline.
Despite the relatively small funding pool of environmentalists, the fossil fuel industry seems to see a real threat on their opponents. It’s not just because they are consistent and their demands are popular and sound scientifically, but also because they have the economy on their side.
G / O Media may receive a commission
For years, the oil and gas industry has struggled strong With the wind against, losing billions of dollars in market value and facing stiff competition from increasingly cheaper renewable energy. In the wake of the covid-19 pandemic, those headwinds threaten to destroy the industry. total. Amid blockades, falling demand for fossil fuels and subsequent historic low prices oil and gas companies have left in crisis. That’s why we are seeing them forecast massive I ask myself in value, and planning to build less fossil fuel infrastructure, including the Atlantic Coast Gas Pipeline.
None of this is to say that economic forces are more responsible than defending the extraction of the pipeline. Like Dallas Goldtooth, who leads the Keep It in the Ground campaign of the Indigenous Environmental Network, saying Earth, “we would not have made these decisions … if it weren’t for the mobilization of the front-line communities. “
Rather, it means that in this economic climate that is so hostile to fossil fuels, the fight to stop fossil fuel extraction will be even more important, because successes could be even more possible. As the cancellation of the pipeline on the Atlantic coast shows, a series of lawsuits against companies already facing financial problems may be the last straw. Furthermore, if the oil and gas extraction process is simply left on the market, it would have disastrous consequences for workers in the oil and gas industry and to vulnerable communities around the world. Elimination must be planned to focus justice, and it will not be unless environmentalists successfully pressure governments to do so.
That does not mean that the battle is suddenly easy. Research shows that the fossil fuel industry may be in terminal decline in the midst of the pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped his friends in government from trying to throw it’s an economic Life line while dismissing the demands of environmental activists like Stripe. And there are still more pipelines planned to fight, with he Keystone XL, Line 3and Jordan cove pipelines among them. But science is clear: It is absolutely essential to stop producing more fossil fuel products as soon as possible.
.
