Leading global coal miner Peabody files for bankruptcy
Global coal producer Peabody Energy has filed for US bankruptcy protection after a sharp drop in coal prices left it unable to service debt of $10.1 billion. The world’s biggest private-sector coal producer said it expected its mines to continue to operate as usual and said its Australian assets were excluded from the bankruptcy. But some analysts and green groups remain sceptical about the company’s ability to bounce back from the debt crisis. Producers accounting for about 45 percent of US coal output have filed for bankruptcy in the industry downturn since 2011. “[Peabody’s] leadership has been unable to adjust to new energy markets in which coal is being displaced by new energy sources,” said Tom Sanzillo, director of finance at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The coal industry is not dead, but it faces a time now in which it must innovate in ways that it has not done before.” In November, Peabody agreed to provide investors with more robust disclosures about how its business could be hurt if global governments move to tackle climate change. (Reuters; Greenbiz)
Apple has ‘strongest climate policy’ of business world
Apple, the world’s most valuable company, boasts its most progressive climate policies, according to an NGO study of 150 global firms. Influence Map awarded the US technology giant for its “consistent” championing of legislation to curb emissions and independence from obstructive trade lobbies. The report analyses how companies directly support or undermine climate legislation, or indirectly through trade associations. According to the analysis, Apple quit the “highly climate-obstructive” US Chamber of Commerce in 2009 and remains “conspicuously absent” from lobby groups accused of watering down laws. The California-based company, which was scored with an A on the study, has publicly defended Obama’s embattled clean power plan and clean energy targets in North California with other tech peers. It has also pledged to source all of its electricity from renewable energy. Google and Microsoft’s link to Business Council of Australia and Business Europe pushed them down the lists, earning a B- and C respectively. Carmakers, media firms and oil companies make up the 150-strong list, with Koch Industries coming bottom. (Climate Change News)
Tax
Oxfam: US corporations have $1.4 trillion hidden in tax havens
US corporate giants such as Apple, Walmart and General Electric have stashed $1.4 trillion in tax havens, despite receiving trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, according to a report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam. The sum is held in an “opaque and secretive network” of 1,608 subsidiaries based offshore, said Oxfam. Based upon an analysis of the financial affairs of the 50 biggest US corporations, the charity said its report was a further illustration of “massive systematic abuse” of the global tax system. Apple topped Oxfam’s league table, with some $181 billion held offshore in three subsidiaries. General Electric was second, with $119 billion stored in 118 tax haven subsidiaries, and Microsoft was third with $108 billion. The top 10 also included pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Exxon Mobil. Oxfam estimates that tax avoidance by US corporations costs the world’s largest economy some $111 billion a year. (Guardian)
Technology & Innovation
The ‘Internet of Soil’ gets a boost from sensor makers Bosch and Flex
Tel Aviv-based startup CropX has announced that leading sensor-manufacturers Bosch and Flex have invested in the company. The 9 month old CropX is focused on building what it calls “the Internet of Soil”. The company’s soil monitoring devices aim to help farmers cut water use up to 30 percent by pinpointing pockets of soil that need more or less water. “The CropX adaptive irrigation platform has become a core component of our business model and has had an enormous impact on our bottom line, in water and fertiliser cost savings, as well as in crop yield improvement,” said Jon-Michael J. Nahon of Integrated Ag Financial, which installed CropX’s technology last year. Precision agriculture is expected to be a nearly $5 billion business by 2020, while the broader Internet of Things rush is projected to unleash value upwards of $1 trillion by 2020, according to one recent estimate from research firm IDC. (GreenBiz; Cropx)
Policy
Exxon says ‘$25 billion rule’ will sink deepwater oil drilling
The world’s biggest oil explorers are fighting a US plan to toughen offshore drilling rules that Exxon Mobil said will cost $25 billion over 10 years and render many offshore discoveries worthless. The Obama administration is expected to issue the sweeping new regulations as part of an effort to reduce the number of blowouts following BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. Blowouts have continued at about the same rate as before the incident. ConocoPhillips and Chevron have already abandoned some Gulf prospects due to lower oil prices. But if the proposals are passed, exploration outlays in the Gulf will tumble by 70 percent over the next two decades. Environmental groups say the new rules don’t safeguard marine life and the people who depend on it for their livelihoods. Friends of the Earth has called on the government to halt all auctions of offshore drilling leases. “Tougher rules aren’t going to mitigate the human and environmental costs of allowing more drilling to occur,” said Marissa Knodel, a climate campaigner for the group. (Bloomberg)
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