Drilled

After a year’s worth of pressure from local press and civil society groups, the Guyanese government released its contract with ExxonMobil to the public in December 2017. The IMF calls it an unfair deal for Guyana. Some local leaders start calling on government officials to try to renegotiate the contract, but others say that’s a fool’s errand and the only place to fight the contract is in court.Read more in Antonia Juhasz's Wired story on Guyana: https://www.wired.com/story/the-quest-to-defuse-carbon-bomb-guyana/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kiana Wilburg, a reporter for Kaieteur News, delves into the complexities of Guyana's oil boom and its impact on the nation. She shares her journey from new reporter to industry expert following ExxonMobil's discovery off the coast. The discussion highlights the disparity between promises of economic prosperity and the harsh realities of environmental degradation. Wilburg emphasizes the challenges faced by journalists against corporate power and urges for transparency in oil deals while exploring the political and social transformations triggered by newfound wealth.

On paper, the small South American country of Guyana is the fastest-growing economy in the world, thanks to its oil boom. The country started shipping barrels of oil in 2019. Hotels are popping up all over its capital city. Historic homes are being turned into condos for visiting oil execs. But average citizens say they aren’t benefiting from the boom like they thought they would. And one lawyer is trying everything she can to stop her homeland from being changed from a carbon sink into a carbon bomb. In this special crossover season of Drilled and Damages, a look at 21st century oil colonialism, amid the climate crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special sneak preview of our next season, we hear from Melinda Janki, a lawyer who's fighting to keep her home country of Guyana from becoming one of the world's largest carbon bombs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The House Oversight Committee wrapped up its investigation into climate disinformation earlier this month and published a second tranche of revealing internal documents that spell out exactly how the world's largest oil companies have misled the public on their commitments to energy transition. One of the people who spearheaded that investigation, Representative Ro Khanna, joins us to discuss. Read more: https://www.drilledpodcast.com/highlights-from-the-climate-disinfo-document-dump/https://theintercept.com/staff/amy-westervelt/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

November was a big month for climate litigation! The first-ever climate RICO was filed on behalf of 16 Puerto Rican municipalities, plus a cohort of scientists and researchers, including NASA scientist James Hansen, sued the EPA to compel them to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Loss and damage was a big focus of #COP27 and, ultimately, one of the few things global negotiators could agree on. But media coverage of loss and damage has left out a lot of important history, including how flawed the fossil fuel industry's "fossil fuels = development" myth is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

COP27 is underway in Egypt. Everyone agrees that the stakes have never been higher so why is longtime fossil fuel industry greenwasher Hill + Knowlton handling media for the conference? Today a look back at the firm's longstanding history crafting science denial and delay strategies for both tobacco and fossil fuel companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The annual Conference of the Parties —a global meeting of negotiators and heads of state to discuss a path forward on climate action—is coming up in a little over a week. Historically these meetings gin up all sorts of climate disinformation. Today, a new report walks journalists and other communicators through the many ways they can counter disinfo without amplifying it. Report: https://caad.info/report/journalist-field-guide-navigating-climate-misinformation/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beginning with Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon) in the late 1940s, oil companies have invested heavily in universities, not just to fund engineering programs and, eventually, climate science, but also to fund the public policy centers and economics programs that shape policy solutions. Fossil Free Research, a new group formed by many of the same students who pushed their campuses to divest from fossil fuels, is demanding that the world's top universities break their addiction to fossil fuel money and in late September they logged their first big win: Princeton University. In this episode we take a look at the roots of fossil fuel funding in universities and the evolution of the movement to root it out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices