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Report Outlines Which Companies Are Most Responsible for Climate Crisis

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Original article by THOR BENSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

“It is morally reprehensible for companies to continue expanding exploration and production of carbon fuels in the face of knowledge now for decades that their products are harmful,” said Richard Heede, who established the Carbon Majors dataset.

A report released by Carbon Majors on Thursday says that 57 companies were responsible for 80% of the world’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and cement production between 2016 to 2022.

Saudi Aramco, Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom, and state-owned producer Coal India were at the top of the list. Carbon Majors has been keeping track of which companies are contributing the most to the climate crisis since 2013.

“The Carbon Majors research shows us exactly who is responsible for the lethal heat, extreme weather, and air pollution that is threatening lives and wreaking havoc on our oceans and forests,” Tzeporah Berman, international program director at Stand.earth and chair at Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, said in a statement. “These companies have made billions of dollars in profits while denying the problem and delaying and obstructing climate policy.”

The report states that nation-state producers account for 38% of CO2 emissions in the database. That’s the highest percentage of any of the types of companies listed in the database.

“The Carbon Majors database finds that most state- and investor-owned companies have expanded their production operations since the Paris agreement. Fifty-eight out of the 100 companies were linked to higher emissions in the seven years after the Paris agreement than in the same period before,” the report reads.

In terms of investor-owned companies, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and BP contributed the most to CO2 emissions. ExxonMobil alone was responsible for 3.6 gigatons of CO2 emissions over a seven-year period.

“It is morally reprehensible for companies to continue expanding exploration and production of carbon fuels in the face of knowledge now for decades that their products are harmful,” said Richard Heede, who established the Carbon Majors dataset, told The Guardian. “Don’t blame consumers who have been forced to be reliant on oil and gas due to government capture by oil and gas companies.”

Original article by THOR BENSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingReport Outlines Which Companies Are Most Responsible for Climate Crisis

World’s largest oil companies ‘way off track’ on emissions goals, report finds

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/22/oil-companies-emissions-goals-report

Gas flares at BP’s Grangemouth oil refinery at dusk in Scotland. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian

Despite splashy climate pledges, firms including BP and Saudi Aramco have plans to expand fossil fuel production, says analysis

In recent years, virtually all of the world’s largest oil companies have made splashy climate pledges. But when it comes to actually slashing emissions, those firms are “way off track”, a new report has found.

The analysis from the thinktank Carbon Tracker assessed the production and transition plans of 25 of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. None align with the central goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to keep global warming “well under” 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the report found.

“Companies worldwide are publicly stating they are supportive of the goals of the Paris-Agreement, and claim to be part of the solution in accelerating the energy transition,” said Maeve O’Connor, analyst at Carbon Tracker and co-author of the report. “Unfortunately, however, we see that none are currently aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement.”

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The analysis comes as oil and gas companies are publicly reneging on their climate commitments. Shell last week watered down earlier emissions targets, following BP, which made a similar announcement last year. In October, ExxonMobil also made a deal to buy the shale group Pioneer Natural Resources, while Chevron announced plans to acquire the Texas oil company Hess – marking two of the country’s largest oil and gas deals in decades.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/22/oil-companies-emissions-goals-report

Continue ReadingWorld’s largest oil companies ‘way off track’ on emissions goals, report finds

Chicago Joins ‘Historic Wave of Lawsuits’ Against Big Oil

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republiahed from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Environmental activists march during the Global Climate Strike in downtown Chicago, Illinois, on September 15, 2023.  (Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

The city alleges the industry “funded, conceived, planned, and carried out a sustained and widespread campaign of denial and disinformation about the existence of climate change and their products’ contribution to it.”

Chicago on Tuesday joined the growing list of U.S. cities and states suing Big Oil for lying to the public about how burning fossil fuels causes and exacerbates the climate emergency.

The administration of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive Democrat, filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and the industry lobby American Petroleum Institute, which “funded, conceived, planned, and carried out a sustained and widespread campaign of denial and disinformation about the existence of climate change and their products’ contribution to it.”

“The climate change impacts that Chicago has faced and will continue to face—including more frequent and intense storms, flooding, droughts, extreme heat events, and shoreline erosion—are felt throughout every part of the city and disproportionately in low-income communities,” the suit contends.

In a statement, Johnson said that “there is no justice without accountability.”

“From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them,” he added. “That is why we are seeking to hold these defendants accountable.”

https://twitter.com/climatecosts/status/1760043981432619269?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1760043981432619269%7Ctwgr%5E8b38b723510420040ed227ade1f1ed4f7162abc2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fclimate-lawsuit-2667326559

Climate campaigners welcomed the lawsuit.

“Big Oil has lied to the American people for decades about the catastrophic climate risks of their products, and now Chicago and communities across the country are rightfully insisting they pay for the damage they’ve caused,” Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles said in a statement.

“With Chicago, the nation’s third largest city, joining the fray, there is no doubt that we are witnessing a historic wave of lawsuits that could finally hold Big Oil accountable for the climate crisis they knowingly caused,” he added.

Chicago joins eight U.S. states plus the District of Columbia and numerous municipalities across the country that have sued to hold Big Oil accountable for deceiving the public about its role in the climate emergency.

“To date, eight federal appeals courts and dozens of federal district courts have unanimously ruled against the fossil fuel industry’s arguments to prevent these lawsuits from moving forward in state courts,” noted the Center for Climate Integrity. “In 2023, the U.S. Justice Department added its support for the communities. The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Big Oil petitions to consider the industry’s appeals of those lower court rulings three separate times, most recently in January.”

Angela Tovar, Chicago’s chief sustainability officer, told the Chicago Sun-Times that “the fossil fuel industry should be able to pay for the damage they’ve caused.”

“We have to see accountability for the climate crisis,” she added.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republiahed from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingChicago Joins ‘Historic Wave of Lawsuits’ Against Big Oil

With $280 Billion in Profits, Oil Giants Are ‘Main Winners of the War in Ukraine’

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Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A protester pretends to celebrate outside Shell’s London headquarters. (Photo: Greenpeace U.K./X)

“They have amassed untold wealth off the back of death, destruction, and spiraling energy prices,” a Global Witness investigator said of a new analysis.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches its second anniversary, one group has clearly benefited: the five biggest U.S. and European oil and gas companies.

BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies have made more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in profits since the war began, according to an analysis published by Global Witness on Monday.

“This analysis shows that regardless of what happens on the front lines, the fossil fuel majors are the main winners of the war in Ukraine,” Global Witness senior fossil fuels investigator Patrick Galey said in a statement. “They have amassed untold wealth off the back of death, destruction, and spiraling energy prices.”

https://twitter.com/Global_Witness/status/1759513194412822610?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1759513194412822610%7Ctwgr%5Ecf0f479e05c1d66d6dfb8e61ce64f22738dffd32%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Foil-majors-winners-ukraine-war

Big Oil’s profits were fueled in part by high wholesale gas prices, which were already elevated before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and skyrocketed afterward. All five companies covered by the analysis reported record profits for 2022.

This bonanza came as the conflict killed more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been devastating for millions of people, from ordinary Ukrainians living under the shadow of war, to the households across Europe struggling to heat their homes,” Galey said.

During 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden accused Big Oil of “war profiteering.”

Global Witness calculated that BP and Shell have raked in enough since the war began—at £75 billion—to pay all British household electricity bills through July 2025. Chevron and ExxonMobil have made a combined $136 billion while Total has netted $50.4 billion.

These massive profits also come as the climate crisis, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, continues to escalate. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and likely the hottest in 125,000 years. Yet instead of using their record profits to invest in renewable energy technology, the five major oil companies have cut back on their climate initiatives and handed massive payouts to shareholders.

“This is yet another way in which the fossil fuel industry is failing customers and the planet.”

Of the more than $280 billion the five companies have brought in since the war began, they returned what Global Witness said was an “unprecedented” $200 billion to shareholders. At the same time, Shell rescinded a promise to curb oil production by 2030 and said it would fire around 200 people employed by its green jobs division. BP, meanwhile, slashed its emissions reduction target from 35-40% of 2019 levels by 2030 to 20-30%.

The money paid to shareholders is also money that could have been paid to help communities adapt to the climate crisis or recover from the damage it has already caused. The $111 billion that the five companies paid to shareholders in 2023 alone is 158 times more than the money pledged to climate-vulnerable nations at COP28, and the €15 billion that TotalEnergies rewarded shareholders with was more than the €10 billion that France needed to recover from droughts and storms in 2022.

Galey said the companies were now “spending their gains on investor handouts and ever more oil and gas production, which Europe doesn’t need and the climate cannot take.”

“This is yet another way in which the fossil fuel industry is failing customers and the planet,” Galey said.

Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Rishi Sunak offers huge fossil fuel subsidies to develop fossil fuel extraction in UK.
Rishi Sunak offers huge fossil fuel subsidies to develop fossil fuel extraction in UK.

Investigating the so-called ‘windfall tax’

Continue ReadingWith $280 Billion in Profits, Oil Giants Are ‘Main Winners of the War in Ukraine’

BP and Shell’s spending on renewables flatlines in 2023

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https://www.energymonitor.ai/finance/corporate-strategy/weekly-data-oil-majors-bp-and-shells-spending-on-renewables-flatlines-in-2023/

Protestors call out bp and Shell during a demonstration in the City of London in 2021. Credit: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

Shell decreased spending on “renewables and energy solutions” last year, while bp’s spending on “low carbon energy” has flatlined, finds an Energy Monitor analysis of fourth-quarter results.

On Tuesday, UK oil major BP reported that in 2023 it raked in $13.8bn (ÂŁ10.93bn) in profits. This represented its second-highest annual profit in a decade – despite it being nearly half the record-breaking $27.7bn bp amassed in 2022 after oil prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Days earlier, Shell also reported better-than-expected profits of more than $28bn, following a record-breaking $40bn in 2022. Yet both oil majors’ spending on renewables has flatlined, finds Energy Monitor‘s analysis of the companies’ filings.

Shell’s annual results show that investment in “renewables and energy solutions” fell from $3.5bn in 2022 to just $2.7bn last year. The company spent just 11.7% of its total capital expenditure (capex) on renewables in 2023 compared with 15.3% in 2022.

By contrast, bp slightly increased its spending on “low carbon energy” from $1.02bn in 2022 to $1.26bn in 2023, although as the chart below shows, spending on renewables by both companies has flatlined over the past five years.

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https://www.energymonitor.ai/finance/corporate-strategy/weekly-data-oil-majors-bp-and-shells-spending-on-renewables-flatlines-in-2023/

Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
Continue ReadingBP and Shell’s spending on renewables flatlines in 2023