Two weeks ago we blogged how Canada was back-tracking on it climate change commitments. Now, it seems, the country has gone further and said that it wants the Kyoto Agreement scapped altogether.

How long can Exxosaurus hold out before it takes action? It may dismiss concerns from environmentalists but it is coming under increasing pressure from shareholders to take decisive action over climate change. This time its pressure from the treasurers of seven US states and one city who are pressuring Exxon’s board of directors for a meeting on its plans to address climate change.

Great Memorial Day post from David Swanson on AfterDowning Street.
Peace in a Gas Pump or Bringing Pharaoh's Armed Madhouse Home | AfterDowningStreet.org

The United States is addicted to oil and we're working with allies and tens of thousands of citizens to intervene. Check out this great new flash video, take action, and please pass it on!

Meanwhile, like the addicts that they are, G8 leaders focussed this year's St. Petersburg Summit on promoting trillions of dollars of investment in new fossil fuels, that will keep on fuelling our oil addition. This, in turn, will keep oil prices high. We've just released a new Policy Brief with the Jubilee USA Network entitled High Oil Prices: Undermining Debt Cancellation and Fueling a New Crisis? (pdf).

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is said to have “icily” rejected US and EU criticism of Russia's blatant use of gas resources as a political weapon in a dispute with Ukraine earlier in the year.
More importantly he also publicly rebuffed European attempts to gain access to his country's vast gas pipeline network. Putin’s tough stance at a one day EU-Russian summit on the Black Sea, has increased tension between Russia and the EU, and it sets the stage for a "fractious summit" of G8 leaders in St Petersburg in July, where energy security is top of the agenda.

A senior scientist whose work is being featured in adverts produced by the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Insitute, has condemned them as "a deliberate effort to mislead."

Professor Curt Davis of the University of Missouri-Columbia whose study on Antarctic ice sheets is used in the adverts, says they "are confusing and misleading the public." The adverts catch phrase is "Carbon dioxide - they call it pollution, we call it life."

Maybe it would be more believable if the CEI ran a series of adverts saying the earth is flat!!

As Big Oil comes under attack for high gas prices, “price gouging”, record profits and huge pay-outs to executives, it is spending millions on advertising to win over a skeptical public. They have also increased their lobbying efforts in Washington to reassure an increasingly hostile Congress.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter and therefore the world's largest indirect polluter, has finally signalled it will help the fight against global warming through, wait for it, helping research into reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the oil industry!

An amusing and disturbing AP story ran yesterday on GM's new pledge to cap gas prices at $1.99 per gallon for customers in California and Florida who buy certain vehicles (mostly SUVs) by July 5. The Hummer is among them.

We're wondering if GM might also be interested in sponsoring the following costs: the shipment of body bags home from Iraq; the cost of reconstructing New Orleans; the clean-up of every community around oil wells and refineries; the forgiveness of third world debt; and the liability costs associated with the oil industry's human rights abuses. That'd be swell of them.

A new website dedicated to people who are interested in travelling without flying or "slow travel" (aka slow food) has been launched - interested then check it out here.