Climate Superfund Act compels oil companies to pay potentially billions of dollars for climate impacts caused by their emissions

Vermont has become the first state to enact a law holding oil firms financially responsible for climate damages, after the Republican governor, Phil Scott, allowed it to pass without his signature late on Thursday.

Modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, the Climate Superfund Act directs the state to charge major fossil fuel companies potentially billions of dollars to pay for climate impacts to which their emissions have contributed. It is expected to face legal challenges from the industry.

Researchers say world has enough fossil fuel projects planned to meet demand forecasts to 2050 if net zero is reached

The world has enough fossil fuel projects planned to meet global energy demand forecasts to 2050 and governments should stop issuing new oil, gas and coal licences, according to a large study aimed at political leaders.

If governments deliver the changes promised in order to keep the world from breaching its climate targets no new fossil fuel projects will be needed, researchers at University College London and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) said on Thursday.

Takeover is latest by a US conglomerate gambling on fossil fuel production as profits surge on rising energy prices

ConocoPhillips is to buy Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at about $17.1bn as profits at big oil giants surge on rising energy prices.

It is the latest American energy conglomerate to place a vast bet on fossil fuel production. Oil giant ExxonMobil completed its $59.5bn acquisition of the shale group Pioneer Natural Resources earlier this month, and Chevron is vying to get its $53bn deal for the oil producer Hess Corporation across the line.

And almost half of respondents back the filing of criminal charges against oil companies that have contributed to the climate crisis

As US communities take big oil to court for allegedly deceiving the public about the climate crisis, polling shared with the Guardian shows that a majority of voters support the litigation, while almost half would back an even more aggressive legal strategy of filing criminal charges.

The poll, which comes as the world’s first-ever criminal climate lawsuit was brought in France last week, could shed light on how, if filed, similar US cases might be viewed by a jury.

Demonstrators gathered outside Paris meetings of energy giant and Amundi, with some forcing their way into fund manager’s tower block

The head of TotalEnergies has told shareholders that new oilfields have to be developed to meet global demand, as the annual meetings of the French energy giant and one of its biggest shareholders were picketed by climate activists.

Police said they detained 173 people among hundreds who gathered outside the Paris headquarters of Amundi, one of the world’s biggest investment managers and a major TotalEnergies shareholder.

In Fort Mohave, Arizona, even Republican voters are fighting gas power plants as utilities try to lock in fossil fuels

Retirement was pretty idyllic for Mac and Debbie McKeever, who moved to Fort Mohave in Arizona for the desert views, starry nights and fresh air. The couple hosted cocktails by the pool and taco Tuesdays with their neighbors – an active bunch of Republican-voting retirees with a penchant for gas-guzzling RVs and side-by-sides, and the unlikeliest environmental activists.

However, in late November 2023, the McKeevers found out that the local government, the Mohave county board of supervisors, was about to vote on a zoning proposal for a gas-fired peaker plant less than 1,200ft (0.2 miles) from their middle-class neighborhood Sunrise Hills.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Jamie Raskin highlight decades-long efforts to sow doubts about climate crisis

Democrats from two powerful committees are urging Joe Biden’s justice department to investigate the fossil fuel industry over its decades-long attempts to sow doubt about the climate crisis.

“We believe that there is adequate evidence that fossil fuel industry companies and trade associations may have violated one or more federal statutes,” the Senate budget committee chair, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, wrote in a Wednesday letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland.

Case alleges French company’s exploitation of fossil fuel contributed to deaths of victims in extreme weather disasters

A criminal case has been filed against the CEO and directors of the French oil company TotalEnergies, alleging its fossil fuel exploitation has contributed to the deaths of victims of climate-fuelled extreme weather disasters.

The case was filed in Paris by eight people harmed by extreme weather, and three NGOs. The plaintiffs believe it to be the first such criminal case filed against the individuals running a major oil company. The public prosecutor who received the file has three months to decide whether to open a judicial investigation or dismiss the complaint.

Jobs and communities dependent on oil and gas sector must be considered in plan to ban North Sea licences, say GMB and Unite

Peace may have broken out between Labour and its union backers over workers’ rights, but shadow ministers face fierce lobbying in another key policy area: how to make the switch from fossil fuels without causing deep economic scarring.

Unions representing tens of thousands of oil and gas workers – in particular GMB and Unite – are demanding urgent answers about what will happen to members’ jobs as the UK switches to cleaner energy sources.