A new report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API) focuses on their finding that of $132.9 billion invested by US public and private sectors in greenhouse gas-mitigating technologies from 2000 to 2008, $58.4 billion came from the oil and gas industry. While API called the oil and gas industry’s investment “pretty impressive,” their report just reinforces that Big Oil has all the wrong priorities:

Kyle Isakower, API’s director of policy analysis, called the oil and gas companies’ $58.4 billion investment a “pretty impressive” number when put in context. “Our members’ primary responsibility is to be able to provide the fuels our country needs,” Isakower explained.

Let’s put this investment into context. The claim that the oil and gas industry invested $58.4 billion in clean energy technologies from 2000 to 2008 is overstated — about ten times over. API lumped in spending on renewable technologies with other “alternative” energies to exaggerate their purported commitment to renewable energy. In fact, the oil and gas industry spent only $6.7 billion on “non-hydrocarbon technology” including ethanol, wind, and solar. $21.1 billion of the $58.4 billion, or more than a third, was invested in liquefied natural gas, yet another fossil fuel. Another $30.6 billion went “mostly to energy efficiency.” Their total investment in renewable energy was little more than a tenth of the $58.4 billion “investments to cut greenhouse gases.”

The oil and gas industry has long invested only a small percentage of their profits in renewable and alternative energy ventures. The API-commissioned report from T² and Associates and the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Texas leaves out any accounting of total oil and gas profits, which totaled over $100 billion in 2008 for the top five companies alone. Analysis from the Center for American Progress showed that these top five oil companies — BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — committed just 4 percent of their total profits to low-carbon investments in 2008. Exxon-Mobil, the biggest of the big oil companies, made more than $45 billion in net income in 2008 — and invested less than 1 percent of its profits in renewable energy. In fact, the API report reveals that the entire oil and gas industry is as bad as or worse than Exxon when it comes to under-investing in renewable energy:

Big Oil Invested Less Than One Percent Of 2000-2008 Profits In Renewables. The top five oil companies raked in $656 billion from 2000 to 2008, meaning that the $6.7 billion investment by the entire US oil and gas industry in renewable energy represents just 1 percent of the profits of the top five oil companies alone. [API, CAP]

Other examples of Big Oil’s attempt to inflate their commitment to renewable energy include multi-million dollar investments in advertising and “green-washing” campaigns, despite investing heavily in organizations that question the existence of global warming. In 2007, Exxon-Mobil spent $100 million on advertising, producing ads that focused on global warming, efficiency, and alternative energy. Chevron has created an “I Will” ad campaign in spite of its record of investing only 5 percent of its $23.9 billion in profits in renewable energy in 2008.

UPDATE:  For links to the report and more, see Lubchenco says, “This report is a game changer.”

If humanity stays near our current greenhouse gas emissions path, then Americans face hell — every state will be red:

The thermometer in this landmark U.S. government report puts warming at 9 to 11°F over the vast majority of the inland U.S. — and that is only the average around 2090 (compared to 1961-1979 baseline).  On this emissions path, the IPCC’s A2 scenario, most of the inland United States will be warming about 1°F a decade by century’s end.  Worse, we are on pace to exceed the A2 scenario (which is “only” about 850 ppm in 2100):  See U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm “¦ the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” “” 1000 ppm.

So this part of my not-so-well-funded analysis appears to hold up well:  “Yes, the science says on our current emissions path we are projected to warm most of U.S. 10 – 15°F by 2100.”

But I’m getting ahead of the story.  On Tuesday at 1:30 PM, the US Global Change Research Program is releasing its long-awaited analysis of Global Climate Change Impacts in United States with NOAA as lead agency.

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NYT columnist Frank Rich has a terrific column on the hate-mongering being pushed by the some of the right-wing media these days, “The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers“:

WHEN a Fox News anchor, reacting to his own network’s surging e-mail traffic, warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, “amped up” Americans who are “taking the extra step and getting the gun out,” maybe we should listen. He has better sources in that underground than most.

You might think this is an off-topic post — but in fact a favorite strategy of the right wing’s many professional climate science deniers is to claim that climate science activists are threatening them with violence.  ClimateProgress was the victim of a recent such bullying effort, as detailed in this recent post.

The point, of course, is to try to shout down those of us who are warning about the dire nature of the problem and to attempt to paint us as out of the mainstream extremists who advocate violence, when, in fact, historically, progressives have strongly embraced nonviolence as a means of promoting our causes. The tragic irony, of course, is that inaction on climate change will ultimately lead to far more violence worldwide, as the U.S. intelligence community and others have warned (see “Memorial Day, 2029“).

Another reason for this classic bullying tactic is to deflect attention from those who are actually most responsible for inciting hatred and violence in America today — the right wing.  That was the point of Rich’s piece, which I reprint below:

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Climate legislation is a necessity for the agricultural sector to survive and thrive (see “Eight reasons for farmers to support global warming action“).  Yet many farmers mistakenly think that their sector would suffer from strong efforts to promote clean energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions — no doubt because bill sponsors have not done a great job explaining things.  So I’m reprinting this post from WonkRoom. I have previously blogged on the new Brookings study and how it fails to model key features of Waxman-Markey that would reduce costs (see “New Brookings finds strong climate action would NOT hurt the economy“). Yet, “even without the inclusion of an offset program to allow the agriculture sector to benefit from carbon market, their analysis found the impact on agriculture to be minimal”:

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If you look up irony in the dictionary….

This new Australian port, which is built in an area vulnerable to rising sea levels, is to export coal that will contribute to climate change.

Coal group coy about port exposure to rising seas

A new coal port that will cement Newcastle’s place as the largest coal exporter in the world is quietly being built up by several metres, apparently in preparation for the rising sea levels brought about by climate change.

The new coal loader is being constructed on a low-lying island on the Hunter River, fringed with tidal mangrove swamps, in an area vulnerable to higher seas, storm surges and coastal erosion.

A landmark aerial survey of Newcastle and Wyong, undertaken by the State Government and the CSIRO, found large tracts of land, including hundreds of houses, were at risk of inundation with seas expected to rise by up to 90 centimetres by the end of the century, prompting the Government to issue new planning guidelines to coastal councils earlier this year.

But the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group, the collection of six mining companies funding the $900 million new port, has refused to say whether rising sea levels figured in its plans. A spokesman for the group said parts of the site were two to three metres above sea level and the area was being further buttressed by 3 million cubic metres of sediment dredged up from the south arm of the Hunter River….

“This material has added two to three metres in average height to the site, well above the areas of concern outlined in the [NSW Government] report,” a spokesman, Chris Ford, said.

But the company remains coy about whether the site had been built up because of climate change concerns. It is a sensitive question because the coal exported from the port would make a measurable contribution to climate change.

“Coy.”  Hmm.  Major coal company compared in Australian media to a 16-year-old girl.  Does the company remain “coy” about its role in destroying a livable climate for the country’s citizens (see “Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in” and “Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest, much of planet, post-2040, if we don’t slash emissions soon“)?  When do these companies come of age and not act like some teenager who thinks she’s going to live forever?  When does the Australian government act like a responsible parent?

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Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) plans to wait until the week of Aug. 3 to mark up climate change legislation in order to have a series of hearings on the issue and the bill first, she said today.

This timetable, reported late last week in E&E News PM (subs. req’d), is faster than many had imagined.  It would create the possibility of the full Senate considering the bill before Copenhagen in December — “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has said he wants to hold a floor debate in the fall on the climate and energy package” — though I still think it unlikely the final bill ends up on Obama’s desk this year.

On Thursday, E&E News (subs. req’d) reported:

Two other Democratic members of the committee — Sens. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — endorsed the hoped-for timeline. “We would like to do it before the August recess, that is correct,” Klobuchar said.

Still, Boxer’s timing remains a tad uncertain:

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