The oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (£2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, a new analysis has revealed.
The vast total captured by petrostates and fossil fuel companies since 1970 is $52tn, providing the power to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis, says Prof Aviel Verbruggen, the author of the analysis. The huge profits were inflated by cartels of countries artificially restricting supply.
The analysis, based on World Bank data, assesses the “rent” secured by global oil and gas sales, which is the economic term for the unearned profit produced after the total cost of production has been deducted.
The study has yet to be published in an academic journal but three experts at University College London, the London School of Economics and the thinktank Carbon Tracker confirmed the analysis as accurate, with one calling the total a “staggering number”. It appears to be the first long-term assessment of the sector’s total profits, with oil rents providing 86% of the total.
Climate protest group Just Stop Oil has halted traffic on the M25 this morning, declaring the London orbital motorway a “site of civil resistance” following record-breaking temperatures on Tuesday.
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The group has issued a statement saying the record heatwave is “without doubt the most important moment in UK history”.
“All-time temperature records are being obliterated, thousands of people are expected to die from heatstroke and the liars and plotters who are vying to lead us are too busy fighting among themselves to even care,” the statement said.
The group accused the government of being “criminals”, who they said were “overseeing the destruction of everything that is needed for society and the state to function”.
CLIMATE activists smashed the windows at the London HQ of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire today in protest at his papers’ coverage of the heatwave.
Members of Extinction Rebellion also plastered recent copies of the Sun and sprayed “tell the truth, and “40° = death,” on the front of the building at London Bridge as they accused the media mogul’s right-wing rags of downplaying the severity of the heatwave.
“Instead of warning readers of the increased risks from such heatwaves as the climate crisis intensifies, the Sun chose to cover their front pages in images of women in bikinis, beach-goers and happy toddlers with ice creams,” the group said in a statement.
Doctors for Extinction Rebellion smash JP Morgan’s windows
ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners and trade unions hit out at the failure to protect the public from the heatwave today, as temperatures are expected to continue to soar today.
Activists from Doctors for Extinction Rebellion (XR) cracked eight panels of glass at financial services giant and investment bank JP Morgan’s offices in Canary Wharf yesterday, in response to the first level-four national emergency heat alert.
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JP Morgan was targeted by Doctors for XR due to its funding of fossil fuels, having poured $394.2 billion (£332bn) into the sector since the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016.
Enough is enough. When did we decide to just sit there and be OK with people in the fifth richest country in the world having to choose between food and heating? When did that happen? When did we decide that we are just going to sit there and let civilisation as we know it to collapse because the government is refusing to cut carbon emissions in line with the cries of the world’s most renowned climate scientists. When did that happen?
People have woken up to the fact that there is only one crisis – the crisis of an elite which cares no more about old people dying of the cold than it does about young people dying of hunger before they get to middle age. This elite refuses to see the misery it is already inflicting on the Global South. The global majority already faces looting, exploitation and climate breakdown. Know one thing for sure – this is murder, plain and simple. Today’s fossil capitalism profits from yesterday’s barbarous imperialism. And they will carry on unless we stop them. No one is coming to save us – not the politicians, not the NGOs, not the entrepreneurs – the only way things will change now is through People Power. It has been the case throughout our history, and so it is today.
We All Want to Just Stop Oil is bringing together the wider environmental and progressive labour movements, faith communities, charities, people from social institutions and famous people – along with thousands of ordinary people who have never before been involved in anything like this – to create mass civil resistance. This is how we will overcome entrenched power – ongoing organised peaceful civil disobedience – slow marches, sit downs, blockades, etc., week after week. They may arrest people but we will not be afraid. We will be courageous, and our contagious courage will spread. They may imprison people but that will make us even more determined to show our solidarity. Their time is up. Our time is now.
On 23 July we are gathering to connect and build. Then, thousands of us will mobilise around the country to prepare for an Autumn of popular mass action – like Extinction Rebellion did in April 2019, forcing the government to respond by occupying central London. But this time involving many more people from a wide coalition of groups, building a deeper, more powerful movement.
The government is failing to enact the policies needed to reach the UK’s net zero targets, its statutory advisers have said, in a damning progress report to parliament.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) voiced fears that ministers may renege on the legally binding commitment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, noting “major policy failures” and “scant evidence of delivery”.
Lord Deben, the chair of the committee and a former Conservative environment secretary, said the government had set strong targets on cutting emissions but policy to achieve them was lacking. “The government has willed the ends, but not the means,” he said. “This report showed that present plans will not fulfil the commitments [to net zero].”
He said net zero policies were also the best way to reduce the soaring cost of living. Average household bills would be about £125 lower today if previous plans on green energy and energy efficiency had been followed through. “If you want to deal with the cost of living crisis, this is exactly what you need to do,” he said.
The greatest failure was the insulation policy. Britain’s homes are the draughtiest in western Europe, heating costs are crippling household budgets, and heating is one of the biggest single sources of carbon emissions, but the government has no plans to help most people insulate their homes.
Energy efficient homes could be an easy win, but we’re ignoring it
There are currently no credible plans to help the majority of households to improve their energy efficiency, the progress report from the Committee on Climate Change concludes: a gaping policy hole that is costing the UK dear, not just in climate terms but in unnecessarily high energy bills for our leaky homes. Insulating buildings would be the quickest and most effective way to counter soaring gas prices, but has been largely ignored by the government after the botched “green homes grant” was scrapped last year. Even our new homes are not efficient: at least 1.5m homes have been built in recent years that will require expensive retrofitting. “It’s a complete tale of woe,” said Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change.
