Climate Must-Reads: Oil Leasing, Chile and Panama Embrace Rights of Nature & More
A bit about this newsletter: If you're on this list, you signed up for a Drilled newsletter at some point. We were on hiatus for a while as I started working with Mary Annaise Heglar on the Hot Take newsletter, which is still very much going! But there's a bunch of ongoing Drilled reporting that doesn't quite fit there, and since I've re-focused the podcast on narrative seasons there are various bonus episodes that don't have a home too, and so here we are. Each week I'll share a quick list of things I'm keeping tabs on, with at least one longer piece. Occasionally I'll post exclusives on here that won't show up anywhere else. And at least a couple times a month I'll release a subscriber-only podcast episode too. The longer pieces and podcast eps will be paywalled, the rest will be free (as will the main podcast feed). Questions, comments, tips? Send 'em along!
Five Stories to Watch
- Despite all news to the contrary, oil & gas companies still not really interested in drilling. According to a survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, nearly 60% of oil and gas execs say investor pressure to maintain capital discipline is the primary reason that publicly traded oil producers are restraining growth despite high oil prices. Despite the public squawking about how environmental policy is cramping their style, only 11 percent of fossil fuel execs cited environmental, social and governance issues as a factor in the choice to keep production steady.
- Chile and Panama embrace rights of nature. In February 2022, Panama made it mandatory to respect and protect nature's right to "exist, persist, and regenerate its life cycles." In March 2022, Chile's Constitutional Assembly approved the addition of a rights-of-nature amendment to the country's Constitution.
- DC AG Karl Racine files a complaint against electric utility Pepco for "systemically mishandling community solar projects and undermining DC’s efforts to meet our ambitious carbon reduction goals."
- 500+ researchers sign on to letter demanding universities stop accepting fossil fuel funding for research.
- Republican Attorneys General, led by Ken Paxton of Texas, filed a brief in the Delaware climate liability case, making the same argument they've made in previous cases—that the complaint belongs in federal court. More on RAGA and their approach to climate cases in our subscriber feature here.
Coming up:
- The IPCC Working Group III report is coming April 4th; we'll have a detailed analysis that week.
- Next week, a bonus podcast episode with the campus divestment activists leading the charge to get fossil fuel money out of university research.
