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Inside Big Oil’s Business as Usual: Failure on Climate and Profits from War

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Original article by Stella Levantesi republished from DeSmog.

A new report shows oil majors fall short of meeting Paris Agreement targets while fueling global military conflicts.

Oil majors are not on track to hit Paris Agreement climate targets that limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, a new report reveals.

Eight fossil fuel giants – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Eni, Equinor, and ConocoPhillips – are on course to use 30 percent of the world’s remaining carbon budget for that 1.5°C goal, according to the Big Oil Reality Check report by nonprofit Oil Change International (OCI).

Combined, the oil and gas companies’ extraction plans are consistent with a temperature rise of over 2.4°C, the report found.That level of warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will reduce food security, risk irreversible loss of ecosystems, and increase heat waves, rainfall, and extreme weather events.

“We analyzed the climate promises and plans of the largest eight international oil and gas companies that are owned in North America and Europe. What would it take for an oil and gas producer to align their production with limiting warming to 1.5?” David Tong, global industry campaign manager at OCI and co-author of the report, told DeSmog. 

“If an oil and gas company were serious about transitioning its business model, the first step would be ending all new production and then setting a Paris-aligned phaseout plan,” he added.

‘No New Fossil’ Standard

A recent paper by academics at University College London and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, published in Science in May, calls for stopping fossil fuel expansion and building a “No New Fossil” global norm. According to the authors, this would make it “easier to phase down fossil fuels” and achieve the Paris Agreement climate goals.

No new fossil fuel projects would be needed in a 1.5°C world, they wrote, because the “existing fossil fuel capital stock” is sufficient to meet energy demand. The authors also note that preventing new fossil fuel projects is, in general, more feasible than closing existing projects from an economic, political, and legal viewpoint.

In the face of continuing global pressure to stop fossil fuel expansion, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, Eni, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies have goals to increase oil and gas production within the next three years or beyond, the OCI report finds. While Shell does not quantify a target, the company plans to keep oil production steady while growing gas production in the near future, OCI said.

“None of those companies came anywhere close to alignment [with climate goals],” said Tong. “Six of the eight companies we analyzed have explicit plans to increase their oil and gas production in this critical decade when we need to be cutting our reliance on fossil fuels, cutting oil, gas, and oil production.”

Plateauing oil and expanding gas production, like some of these companies plan to do, is “grossly insufficient” compared with the action that’s needed, Tong added. Even commitments to make businesses more efficient aren’t going to cut it alone, he said.

“It’s like a cigarette company claiming that it will solve lung cancer by producing cigarettes more efficiently,” he noted. “That’s not just not a credible claim. It’s a promise to become a more efficient climate breaker.”

Big Oil and War

According to the OCI report, all the oil majors fail to meet basic criteria for just transition plans for workers and communities where they operate. 

“A number of these companies also face significant ongoing, unresolved allegations of human rights … and Indigenous people’s rights violations,” Tong told me.

A March 2024 investigation, commissioned by OCI and conducted by DataDesk, revealed that ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Shell, and Eni are “complicit in facilitating the supply of crude oil to Israel.” These findings are particularly noteworthy in the context of “Israel’s mounting evidence of war crimes” against Palestinians in Gaza, the OCI states in its new report. 

Diesel and gasoline for tanks and other military vehicles are supplied by Israel’s refineries, which rely on regular imports of crude oil by these companies and, since October 2023, supplies mainly from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan/Russia, Gabon, and Brazil, the research has found. 

The fossil fuel industry is “fueling war and military conflicts” in many regions of the world, said Svitlana Romanko, a prominent Ukrainian activist and founder and director of Razom We Stand, a Ukrainian organization campaigning to ban all imports of fossil fuels from Russia. 

According to Romanko, the OCI Big Oil Reality Check report “reinforces the importance of moving away from fossil fuels and investing into distributed renewable energy.”

A new analysis by a group of climate experts estimates that the first two years of Russia’s war on Ukraine resulted in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to around 175 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The estimated global cost of this warming in extreme weather impacts: $32 billion. 

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia earned over 681 billion euros in revenue from fossil fuel exports. European Union countries purchased fossil fuels from Russia for more than 195 billion euros.

Big Oil, as well as Russia, is profiting from the war, Romanko said. After the invasion, BP, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies raked in $219 billion, more than double their profits compared to the previous year.

“Most [governments] subsidize fossil fuels, and these subsidies are accounting for trillions of U.S. dollars annually,” Romanko said. “This is a big part of fossil fuel profits, and the more fossil fuels are subsidized, [the] less investments are made available for renewable energies.”

She pointed out that the partnership between TotalEnergies and Russia’s largest private gas producer, Novatek, was also “instrumental” in helping Russia get access to technologies and engineering services to launch Novatek’s Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2 projects.

Romanko notes that fossil fuel infrastructure can also constitute a liability for military attacks and quickly become a target.

“Centralized infrastructure endangers energy supply and overall safety of the supply,” she said. In Ukraine, a massive effort to install solar power plants in schools and hospitals helped decentralize this key resource, Romanko explained. “Decentralized energy supply is essential to building true energy independence,” she added. “And this is the future.”

Pressure for Accountability

Some of the eight oil majors in OCI’s report have faced more international and national scrutiny than others. Such pressure can facilitate accountability, but that’s less likely when the fossil fuel company is closely intertwined with the institutional, political, and economic life of its country. 

A BP gas station sign. Credit: Mike Mozart (CC BY 2.0)

“We need to look at what has succeeded in putting so much pressure on companies like Shell and BP,” OCI’s Tong said. 

One factor: when communities in a company’s home country work closely in partnership with communities in fossil fuel-producing countries. Tong said that positive results also happen when campaigners use a range of strategies to expose producers, from nonviolent direct action to op-eds, research, and court action.

“This is particularly challenging with Eni, TotalEnergies, and Equinor in different ways because of the close interactions that each of the companies have with their home states,” he added.

Public, political, and legal pressure for accountability must also be coupled with industry regulation, according to Tong.

“We concluded that there is no evidence that the oil and gas sector will voluntarily transition to renewable energy, or voluntarily act to align their production with what’s needed for the Paris Agreement,” Tong said. Instead, governments must no longer license new production sites. 

The strong right-wing result in the latest EU Parliament elections could also affect Big Oil’s energy transition. 

“The more the links between the state and big polluters are overt, the more people get out in the streets and protest,” Tong said.

What is safe to say is that Big Oil’s business as usual will increase climate change effects.

“Floods, hurricanes, extreme weather events, and the millions of human lives affected and lost – this damage to nature, to human lives and to life on earth will only mount,” Romanko said. “What will be lost in a few more years will also mount if fossil fuel companies are allowed to continue with business as usual.”

Original article by Stella Levantesi republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingInside Big Oil’s Business as Usual: Failure on Climate and Profits from War

‘Climate Arsonists’: 8 Major Oil Companies Fail to Align With Paris Agreement

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

An ExxonMobil oil refinery is pictured in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo: Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)

“We cannot trust fossil fuel corporations to do anything but line the pockets of their CEOs and investors at the cost of our climate and communities,” one campaigner said.

The eight largest U.S. and Europe-based oil and gas producing companies are failing to align their plans with the Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels and avoiding ever more catastrophic climate impacts.

Oil Change International’s Big Oil Reality Check report, released Tuesday, concludes that the plans of BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies would actually put the world on track for more than 2.4°C of warming and burn through nearly one-third of the global carbon budget for hitting the 1.5°C target.

“It’s clearer than ever that oil and gas companies—the climate arsonists fueling climate chaos—cannot be trusted to put out the fire,” David Tong, report author and global industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement. “There is no evidence that big oil and gas companies are acting seriously to be part of the energy transition.”

“The Big Oil Reality Check report reveals that oil and gas corporations are more interested in looking like they are acting on climate change than actually acting on climate change.”

For its fourth annual Big Oil Reality Check, Oil Change International judged the oil companies’ climate plans and pledges against a set of minimum standards for alignment with the Paris agreement. The standards were divided into three main categories: ambition, integrity, and people-centered transitions.

Under ambition, the companies were assessed on whether they had plans to stop oil and gas exploration, stop approving new extraction projects, decrease production every year through 2030, and stop extraction on a certain date while outlining a long-term plan to end production.

Under integrity, the companies were assessed on whether their emissions-reduction plans included their entire supply chain, whether they relied on carbon capture or offsets, whether their methane-reduction plans were really in line with climate goals, and whether they lobbied or advertised against climate action.

For people-centered transitions, they were assessed on whether they had just transition plans for employees and members of frontline communities and whether they respected human rights overall and the rights of Indigenous peoples, including to free, prior, or informed consent to any fossil fuel activities.

The companies were then rated from “fully aligned” to “grossly insufficient” for how well their plans complied with the Paris goals within the assessment’s framework, but all eight companies scored “insufficient” or “grossly insufficient” for a majority of the criteria.

Only one company—Eni—scored above “insufficient” in any category, earning a ranking of “partially aligned” for having greenhouse gas-reduction plans that included its supply chains. The three U.S.-based companies—Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil—scored “grossly insufficient” for all 10 criteria.

“American fossil fuel corporations are the worst of the worst,” Oil Change International’s U.S. program manager Allie Rosenbluth said. “Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips perpetuate harm in frontline communities not only across the U.S. but worldwide.”

Oil Change found that six out of the eight companies have official plans to increase oil and gas production. The only two that did not were BP and Shell; however, these companies employ a misleading strategy. They compensate for new oil and gas projects by selling off polluting assets. While the emissions from the sold operations no longer count toward company emissions, they still count toward the planet’s total. This practice is out of line with the GHG Protocol on corporate emissions accounting and may violate the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Four of the companies assessed in the report—BP, Shell, Exxon, and Chevron—were also the subject of a recent U.S. House investigation and Senate hearing detailing how the fossil fuel industry playbook has shifted from outright denial of climate science to greenwashing its activities by presenting itself as part of the solution to the climate crisis while its day-to-day operations continue to raise global temperatures.

“The efforts of climate and social movements have forced oil and gas companies to acknowledge that fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous, leading to a variety of climate pledges and ‘plans,'” said Oil Change campaigner Myriam Douo. “The Big Oil Reality Check report reveals that oil and gas corporations are more interested in looking like they are acting on climate change than actually acting on climate change.”

“They spend billions on smoke and mirrors to try to fool us into believing they have solutions for a livable planet when, in reality, they are perpetuating harm to the climate and local communities while trying to suck every last ounce of profit out of their dirty fossil fuel business,” Douo concluded.

All told, Rystand energy data suggests that the combined production of the eight companies will be 17% by 2030 than they were last year.

“Such an increase in production on a global scale would put the world on a path towards global heating well beyond 2°C, locking in destruction of vulnerable communities and ecosystems,” the report authors wrote.

The report finds that all of the companies intend to rely on unproven carbon capture technology or offsets schemes to meet their claimed emission-reduction goals and have continued to spend money on lobbying against climate action and greenwashing their own activities since the agreement in Paris.

Further, no company has plans consistent with ensuring a just transition or protecting human rights. In one recent and urgent example, ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Shell, and Eni all continue to provide Israel with crude oil despite “the Israeli military’s ongoing assault on Palestinian civilians, ecosystems, and infrastructure in Gaza and mounting evidence of war crimes,” a March Oil Change investigation found.

The report comes nearly half a year after world leaders agreed to contribute to “transitioning away from fossil fuels” at the COP28 U.N. climate change conference in Dubai. In light of its conclusions, Oil Change called on governments to take action to further a just transition:

  1. Stop permitting or approving new fossil fuel projects or infrastructure;
  2. Set a Paris-aligned date for phasing out fossil fuel production;
  3. End subsidies and financing for fossil fuels and false solutions like carbon capture;
  4. Use tax policy to incentivize against investing in fossil fuels;
  5. Craft a just transition, including by making polluters pay for cleanup and reparations; and
  6. Passing laws to protect human rights and Indigenous rights and giving communities a legal mechanism to seek redress from corporate polluters.

Oil Change also argued that governments in the Global North should hold companies headquartered within their borders accountable for harm abroad and put money into funds to enable the Global South to transition to renewable energy, adapt to climate change, and pay for inevitable loss and damage.

“This year’s Big Oil Reality Check makes it clearer than ever—we cannot trust fossil fuel corporations to do anything but line the pockets of their CEOs and investors at the cost of our climate and communities,” Rosenbluth said. “People around the world are rising up to end the era of fossil fuels and build a just energy system that puts climate and communities first.”

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

Continue Reading‘Climate Arsonists’: 8 Major Oil Companies Fail to Align With Paris Agreement

Most US Voters Agree: Make Big Oil Pay for Climate Damage

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

Two-thirds of U.S. voters surveyed by Data for Progress support making fossil fuel companies pay for the damage their products cause to the climate.  (Photo: rmitsch/Getty Images)

“Voters resoundingly endorse fossil fuel companies contributing their fair share to address a crisis they helped manufacture and still refuse to help fix,” said one campaigner.

As yet another United Nations Climate Change Conference winds down without a meaningful agreement on phasing out fossil fuels, polling released Tuesday by Data for Progress revealed strong bipartisan support among U.S. voters for legislation forcing oil and gas companies to pay for their role in fueling the planetary emergency.

The survey of 1,279 U.S. voters, conducted November 3-6, found that around two-thirds of all likely voters support such legislation, a +40-point net margin. Among Democrats, support for the proposed bill is 88%, while 61% of Independent and 46% of Republicans either strongly or somewhat back the proposal.

“In a resounding call for accountability, two-thirds of the American people support legislation demanding industry titans like Exxon and Shell shoulder their fair share of the climate damages inflicted by fossil fuels.”

Asked if they were more or less likely to support elected officials who prioritize making Big Oil pay for its climate pollution, 64% of overall respondents, 89% of Democrats, and 58% of Independents answered “more likely.” Republicans were the only group whose members were less likely to back officials who would make oil and gas companies pay for their pollution.

“In a resounding call for accountability, two-thirds of the American people support legislation demanding industry titans like Exxon and Shell shoulder their fair share of the climate damages inflicted by fossil fuels,” Fossil Free Media communications director Cassidy DiPaola said in a statement.

“With COP spotlighting the towering price tag of climate change, voters resoundingly endorse fossil fuel companies contributing their fair share to address a crisis they helped manufacture and still refuse to help fix,” she added, referencing the U.N. summit.

The poll follows the September launch of the “Make Polluters Pay” campaign, a public relations blitz meant to drum up public support for suing fossil fuel corporations—which knew that their products caused climate change decades before publicly saying so.

That month, California joined dozens of states and municipalities that have targeted fossil fuel giants in court,suing five fossil fuel giants—ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron—over their decadeslong effort to deceive the public about their products’ role in fueling global heating.

The new survey’s findings also came as so-called “loss and damage”—the harm caused by anthropogenic climate change—features prominently at COP28. However, climate campaigners were once again disappointed as the United States and other top polluters failed to make meaningful contributions to the fund.

The rich nations most responsible for the climate catastrophe pledged just $700 million between them, the equivalent of under 0.2% of the irreversible losses Global South countries suffer each year during the worsening planetary crisis. The United States pledged a paltry $17.5 million.

“Every year, we travel across oceans to come to these negotiations and we continue to get only drops of ambition,” Drue Slatter, a Fijian climate campaigner attending COP28, wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday by Common Dreams.

“Facing the catastrophic effects of extreme weather at home and watching the slow progress of the negotiations, it was hard not to be pessimistic before we even arrived at COP28,” Slatter added. “But the point is that we can’t afford not to be here, we can’t afford to stop fighting because what’s at stake is our very survival.”

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

Continue ReadingMost US Voters Agree: Make Big Oil Pay for Climate Damage

Greenpeace USA Welcomes Aviram Azari Sentencing, Calls for Investigation into Who Hired Him

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Greenpeace image, sign reads CHOOSE OCEANS, NOT OIL
Greenpeace image, sign reads CHOOSE OCEANS, NOT OIL

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/greenpeace-usa-welcomes-aviram-azari-sentencing-calls-for-investigation-into-who-hired-him

WASHINGTON – In response to the sentencing of Aviram Azari, Ebony Twilley Martin, Greenpeace USA Executive Director, said: “We are pleased to see federal prosecutors taking legal action against those who use underhanded tactics like hacking to target public interest advocates. Our justice system is increasingly being used to hold fossil fuel companies and their backers accountable–including lawsuits brought by the states of California and Massachusetts against oil companies, including ExxonMobil, for deceptive and misleading practices.”

Greenpeace activists paint "Gas kills" on the hull of the Cape Ann.

“That said, justice will not be completely served in this case until those who hired Azari are exposed and held to account. Whoever that is though, they ultimately failed. They failed to stop elected leaders across the country from pursuing some level of accountability for actions that – over time – amount to one of the greatest corporate crimes against humanity ever committed.”

“Overwhelmingly, the American people want climate action, and Big Oil will use every tool in their toolbox to stop it. Cyber attacks like this are one of the many tactics designed to silence and oppose climate activists. They have serious impacts on people’s lives–and thus their ability to do the important work of protecting our planet. But we aren’t backing down – in our work, our pursuit of justice. The stakes are too high.”

Greenpeace International Executive Director Mads Christensen said:

“Today’s sentencing of a hacker-for-hire, who facilitated an international spear-phishing campaign, serves as a stark warning to those who seek to intimidate and silence climate activists. But this case will not be closed until those who hired the hacker are held accountable.

Greenpeace cover Rishi Sunak's home in black oily fabric in protests at Sunak's intended huge expansion of North Sea fossil fuel exploration.
Greenpeace cover Rishi Sunak’s home in black oily fabric in protests at Sunak’s intended huge expansion of North Sea fossil fuel exploration. Image © Greenpeace.

“Greenpeace International is shocked to learn from the Government’s sentencing memorandum that ExxonMobil cited media articles based on hacked and stolen information in filings it made in US courts, while litigating against investigations into the company’s early knowledge and potential misrepresentation of climate risks. This revelation won’t stop the mounting global efforts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in contributing to deadly and devastating climate impacts. From the Philippines to the Netherlands, courageous communities impacted by the climate crisis are seeking justice to protect their human rights from being harmed by oil, gas, and coal companies, and they are winning.”

Image of a whale tail.

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/greenpeace-usa-welcomes-aviram-azari-sentencing-calls-for-investigation-into-who-hired-him

Related: Hacker-for-Hire Who Targeted Climate Activists: ‘You Don’t Know Everything’ Yet

Continue ReadingGreenpeace USA Welcomes Aviram Azari Sentencing, Calls for Investigation into Who Hired Him

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Original article by Max Colbert republished from DeSmog. Makes more sense now why Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are campaigning at UK Universities.

Revealed: Fossil Fuel Giants Have Committed £40.4 Million to UK Universities Since 2022

Major oil and gas companies including Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil have pledged huge sums in the form of research agreements, scholarships and more.

The University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus. Credit: Sic19 / Wikimedia Commons, CC -0

Major fossil fuel firms have committed tens of millions in finance to UK universities since 2022, DeSmog can reveal. 

Many of these commitments have been accepted by institutions that have actively pledged to divest from oil and gas companies. 

According to freedom of information requests submitted by DeSmog, more than £40.4 million has been pledged to 44 UK universities by 32 oil, coal and gas companies since 2022 in the form of research agreements, tuition fees, scholarships, grants, and consulting fees.

Most of the funding spans the current academic year, with a handful of projects running for a number years, up to as far as 2027.

The largest contributors were Shell, Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas, and British Petroleum (BP). These three companies account for over 76 percent of the total figure awarded, having committed £20.98 million, £5.19 million, and £4.89 million respectively.

A further 10 companies made up nearly 20 percent of the remaining contributions during this period: Sinopec, Equinor, BHP Group, Total Energies, Eni SPA, Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Kellas Midstream, Ithaca Energy, and Chevron.

Previous reporting from openDemocracy and the Guardian found that, between 2017 and December 2021, £89 million had been given to UK universities from some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies.

These partnerships have shown no sign of abating. DeSmog’s research shows an additional £40 million committed by fossil fuel firms since 2022, despite pledges from 102 higher education institutions to divest from the industry.

The universities in receipt of the most money were: Exeter, Imperial College London, Heriot-Watt, Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford, Royal Holloway, Queen Mary London, and Teesside.

“Young people care so deeply about protecting the planet because their futures are on the line,” said Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. “Yet fossil fuel giants are putting that future at risk with their planet-wrecking pollution, and then attempting to youthwash their reputation by handing over dirty money to universities”.

“If we’re going to tackle the climate emergency and secure a liveable future for the next generation, educational institutions should cut all ties with fossil fuel companies immediately.”

These figures do not include a total for Durham University, which declared that it had research agreements involving fossil fuel firms totalling £1.7 million but did not declare the sums that the oil and gas firms had contributed to these agreements. 

These figures also do not include the amount held in fossil fuel investments by these universities. Our research indicates that at least 18 higher education institutions held direct investments in 25 fossil fuel companies over the relevant time period, collectively worth a further £8.1 million.

Many top universities also hold stakes in high-value pooled investment funds that are pouring hundreds of millions into fossil fuel giants. Research conducted by the student campaign group People & Planet estimates that, as of July 2022, as much as £319 million was still held in these funds by universities across the UK, including some institutions that have made promises to divest.

More than 65 percent of the country’s higher education institutions have refused to make further fossil fuel investments. This would potentially remove £17.7 billion from the reach of the industry, while 51 universities have yet to divest from oil and gas

Laura Clayson, climate campaigns manager at People & Planet, told DeSmog: “we say to those 51 universities left to divest: the student movement will remain unwavering in its demands for justice until our victory list includes every single one of you.”

The Leaderboard

The University of Exeter has received the most from fossil fuel firms since 2022, having signed a £14.7 million, five-year deal with Shell in November, as revealed by Byline Times. The project is to work on “carbon storage and sequestration”, and continues a 15-year relationship between the university and the oil giant.

According to the contract award notice, the project is part of a “wider Shell-led research programme focused on sequestration which aligns with Shell’s target to be a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050”. 

Last year, Shell produced only 0.02 percent of its energy from renewable sources, analysis by Greenpeace has revealed. The company also recently abandoned plans to cut oil production by 1-2 percent each year until 2030, and will be investing £33 billion in oil and gas production between 2023 and 2035, compared to just £8-12 billion in “low-carbon” products. 

Shell claims that it has reduced oil production more quickly than expected, though the company’s planned emissions between 2018 and 2030 are estimated to account for nearly 1.6 percent of the global carbon budget. 

A spokesperson for the firm said: “We remain committed to becoming a net zero emissions energy business by 2050… It remains our view that global energy demand will continue to grow and be met by different types of energy – including oil and gas.”

New research from the University of Queensland shows that more than half of the world’s top fossil fuel producers will fail to meet climate targets unless they expand plans to decarbonise, while a major report from the UN has warned that the world will miss its climate targets unless it commits to “phasing out all unabated fossil fuels”.

A University of Exeter spokesperson said that its work with Shell will “contribute to the global race to net zero.”

Imperial College London has received the second most from fossil fuel firms since 2022. This follows a long association with oil and gas giants, which gave £54 million to the university between 2017 and 2021.

A spokesperson for Imperial told DeSmog that it pledged in 2020 it will only engage in research partnerships “with fossil fuel companies where the research forms part of their plans for decarbonisation, and only if the company demonstrates a credible strategic commitment to achieving net-zero by 2050”. 

The university has maintained a working relationship with 13 fossil fuel companies since 2022.

The largest beneficiaries of fossil fuel financial commitments since 2022

Exeter£14,700,000
Imperial College London£6,725,769
Heriot-Watt£6,005,844
Manchester£3,077,268
Cambridge£2,821,437
Oxford£1,209,221
Royal Holloway£740,657
Queen Mary London£587,956
Teesside£500,000

The University of Manchester houses the BP Centre for Advanced Materials (ICAM) research unit, a collaboration between BP and leading universities in the UK and US, including Manchester, Cambridge, and Imperial. The ICAM website states that the centre supports “BP’s ambitions to become a net zero company by 2050”. 

BP generated just 0.17 percent of its energy from renewable sources in 2022 and, in the first half of last year, the company spent more than 10 times more on new oil and gas projects than it did on “low carbon” energy. In 2022, 92.7 percent of all activity for both BP and Shell went into fossil fuel investment. 

As with Shell, BP posted record profits in 2022 worth some £23 billion. At the same time, it scaled back plans to cut emissions by 2050 on the grounds that it needs to keep investing in new oil and gas to meet consumer demand. BP did not respond to our request for comment.

The University of Manchester’s funding agreements with BP stretch back to 2008, when it was selected by the fossil fuel giant to run its Projects and Engineering College. 

Hundreds of people have subsequently completed BP’s courses at the university, with Manchester describing the partnership as a “strategic alliance that has a major impact on both organisations”. The university has also received money from Shell and TotalEnergies.

A spokesperson for Manchester told DeSmog: “Since 2019 all new research funded in the BP ICAM has been focused on topics in materials sciences that support the energy transition, providing research to support BP’s goal to become a net zero company by 2050.”

Since 2022, Durham University’s research projects have included contributions and commitments from BP, ExxonMobil, and the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec). 

The university also previously partnered with the universities of Edinburgh and Leeds to form the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Soft Matter and Functional Interfaces (SOFI CDT), which has been sponsored by industrial partners including Infineum, a joint venture between ExxonMobil and Shell. 

Durham University is also a sponsor of the GeoNetZero CDT, a PhD research and training programme focused on geoscience and the energy transition, which has 11 other university partners; Heriot-Watt, Aberdeen, Birmingham, Dundee, Exeter’s ‘Camborne School of Mines’, Keele, Newcastle, Nottingham, Plymouth, Royal Holloway and Strathclyde. 

From 2020 to 2022, CDT recruited 16 PhD students per year, funded in part by the oil and gas firm NEO Energy, which pledged £2.5 million alongside academic partners.

The centre is based out of the Shell Building at Heriot-Watt University’s School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, and has nine core industry partners: BP, Cairn Energy, Chrysaor, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), Equinor, ExxonMobil, NEO Energy, Shell, and Total Energy. 

A spokesperson for Heriot-Watt told DeSmog: “Heriot-Watt University and our Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) are committed to a rapid and just energy transition, led by our world-class research and teaching… The GeoNetZero CDT is a new programme of PhD research and training set up to address key areas in geoscience and their role in the low carbon energy transition and challenge of net zero.

“We work in collaboration with the energy sector to develop education and research opportunities related to net zero, responsible consumption of oil and gas, and the transition to renewable energy sources.”

Studentships

Fossil fuel companies pledged to fund scholarships and tuition fees across at least 17 universities in 2022. 

The Italian multinational Eni funded a scholarship programme at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School in 2022 called the Africa Scholarship, as well as a scholarship programme with St Anthony’s College, Oxford. 

Oxford has previously said that it “receives funding from and donations from companies and organisations from the fossil fuel sector” typically at an average of £3 million a year in research funding and £2 million in philanthropic donations. It says that the research funding is equivalent to less than 1 percent of the university’s research turnover.

Kellas Midstream also funds a set of scholarships at Teesside University, while Cardiff receives over £870,000 from TotalEnergies for its OneTech Futures graduate programme, which began in 2018 and runs through to 2025.

Shell has given the University of Aberdeen £150,000 for new “Transition Scholarships” for the coming academic year, funding research into “key challenges around net zero and reducing emissions”.

The university, based in Europe’s “oil capital” on the coastline of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas fields, pledged to divest from fossil fuels in 2021 – saying that it planned on excluding fossil fuel extraction companies from its £52.7 million investment portfolio by 2025.

A report commissioned by the University of Cambridge and led by Nigel Topping, a former UN climate action champion, last year recommended that the institution halt all funding from fossil fuel companies, including for research or philanthropic purposes. Cambridge itself took £2.8 million from Shell, BP, and BHP Billiton in 2022, and has reportedly received around £3.3 million per year from the industry since 2017. 

A spokesperson told DeSmog: “The University of Cambridge only accepts funding from energy companies where it is sure that the resulting collaboration will help the UK and global society move to renewable or decarbonised energy. An enhanced set of criteria created in 2021 includes a written assessment from non-conflicted experts on whether the purpose of the proposed collaboration contributes meaningfully to the energy transition.”

A spokesperson for the University of Strathclyde said: “The University of Strathclyde is committed to supporting the energy transition to a sustainable, renewable energy system and the delivery of net zero targets by 2050. Much of the University’s work in the achievement of a sustainable and zero carbon economy is carried out in collaboration with industrial partners in the energy sector.”

A spokesperson for Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “At Royal Holloway, University of London, we are committed to developing and implementing activities that support environmental sustainability and a solution-based approach to net zero.”

The University of Bradford refused to reveal how much it received in partnerships with both Sinopec and the Saudi chemicals company SABIC, citing the commercial interests of the companies. 

A deal struck between the University of Surrey and BP, running from 2019-2022, was also withheld because of a non-disclosure agreement in place. 

A number of other universities refused our freedom of information requests or failed to respond to repeated requests for comment. This included the universities of East Anglia, Nottingham, Birmingham, Plymouth, Loughborough, Bishop Grosseteste, and Oxford Brookes.

Additional reporting by Joey Grostern and Sam Bright

UPDATE: 5 October 2023 – This article previously erroneously listed Scottish Power as a fossil fuel company. The firm has now been removed from the article and Strathclyde University removed from the largest recipients of fossil fuel funding.

Original article by Max Colbert republished from DeSmog. Makes more sense now why Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are campaigning at UK Universities.

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