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Study links world’s top oil and gas firms to 200 ‘more intense’ heatwaves

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Original article by Ayesha Tandon republished from Carbon Brief under a CC license.

A group of tourists huddled under a tree whilst visiting the Acropolis, Athens, Greece. Credit: Dimitris Aspiotis / Alamy Stock Photo

Global warming linked to the world’s biggest oil and gas companies made all “major” 21st century heatwaves more intense and frequent.

This is according to new research, published in Nature, which uses “extreme event attribution” to assess the impact of climate change on all 21st-century heatwaves that were classified as “major disasters”.

The authors find one-quarter of the 213 heatwaves would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused global warming.

They add that the effect of climate change on heatwave frequency and intensity is becoming more pronounced as the planet warms.

The study estimates the emissions stemming from the operations and production of more than 100 “carbon majors”, such as ExxonMobil, BP, Saudi Aramco and Shell.

The fossil fuels produced by these companies account for 60% of all human-caused CO2 emissions over 1850-2023, the study says.

The authors find that heatwaves recorded over 2000-23 were made, on average, 1.7C hotter due to climate change, with half of this increase due to the emissions originating from carbon majors. 

This study “could be used to support future climate lawsuits and aid diplomatic negotiation”, according to a scientist not involved in the research.

Worsening heatwaves 

As the planet warms, heatwaves are becoming more intense and frequent, driving economic losses, ecosystem damage and a rise in heath-related deaths. 

The EM-DAT database catalogues all “major disasters” that have been reported since the year 1900 – defined as events that cause at least 10 fatalities, affect at least 100 people, or result in the declaration of state of emergency or a call for international assistance.

Between 2000 and 2023, the database lists more than 200 heatwaves. These are shown on the map below, where darker pink indicates a greater number of heatwaves. Countries with no reported heatwaves are shown in grey.

Global map showing that more than 200 'major' heatwaves have been recorded around the world in the 21st century
The map below shows the number of heatwaves per country recorded over 2000-23 on the EM-DAT database. Data: Quilcaille et al (2025).

The study authors acknowledge that heatwave reporting is “highly uneven”, with only nine of the heatwaves reported in the database since the year 2000 in Africa, Latin America or the Caribbean. (This is largely because extreme heat events in these regions are not routinely monitored.)

They then carried an attribution analysis on each heatwave to identify whether it was made more likely or intense due to human-caused climate change.

The chart below shows how climate changes increased the intensity and frequency of the 78 heatwaves assessed over 2000-09 (left), 54 heatwaves assessed over 2010-19 (middle) and 81 heatwaves assessed over 2020-23 (right).

The authors find that climate change increased the intensity and probability of all 213 heatwaves in the study. They add that the influence of climate change on heatwaves is strengthening over time.

In each panel, the bars show the percentage of heatwaves in that time period that were made 0.25-1.0C (yellow), 1.0-2.0C (orange) or 2.0-3.0C (red) hotter due to climate change. 

The position of bars indicate the change in likelihood of the heatwaves. This ranges from those made 1-10 times more likely due to climate change (left-most bar in each panel) to those made more than 11,000 times more likely (right-most bar in each panel). 

Bar chart showing change in heat intensity
The extent to which climate changes increased the intensity and frequency of the 78 heatwaves assessed over 2000-09 (left), 54 heatwaves assessed over 2010-19 (middle) and 81 heatwaves assessed over 2020-23 (right). These are shown by colours and bar heights respectively. Source: Quilcaille et al (2025).

Heatwaves recorded over 2000-09 were, on average, 20 times more likely due to climate change, according to the authors. Meanwhile, those recorded over 2010-19 were about 200 times more likely. 

Similarly, 2000-09 heatwaves were 1.4C hotter due to human-caused climate change on average, according to the study, while 2010-19 heatwaves were made 1.7C hotter.

The study finds that human-caused climate change made 55 heatwaves at least 10,000 times more likely. According to the authors, this is “equivalent to saying that they would have been virtually impossible” without the influence of human activity.

Carbon majors

To assess the contribution to heatwaves by oil and gas companies’ products, the authors use a database of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from 180 carbon majors over 1854-2023. This includes direct emissions from the companies, as well as the emissions released when the oil and gas they produced is used by others. 

The 180 carbon majors in the database represent 60% of all human-caused CO2 emissions, including land use, over 1850-2023, according to the study. The paper adds that 14 companies, including ExxonMobil, BP, Saudi Aramco and Shell, are responsible for almost half of these emissions.

Using the Earth system model OSCAR, the authors estimate that global average surface temperatures increased by 1.3C between the 1850-1900 average and the year 2023.

They find that 0.7C of this increase was linked to the carbon majors, with 0.3C due to the emissions of the 14 largest.

The chart below, taken from an accompanying Nature “news and views” article, shows the contribution of oil and gas companies’ products to increasing global average surface temperatures over 1950-2023, compared to the 1850-1900 average. 

Each colour indicates a carbon major, while grey indicates other sources of temperature increase, such as land-use change. 

The contribution of oil and gas companies to increasing global average surface temperatures over 1950-2023, compared to the 1850-1900 average. Each colour indicates a company, while grey indicates other sources of temperature increase. Source: Haustein (2025).
The contribution of oil and gas companies to increasing global average surface temperatures over 1950-2023, compared to the 1850-1900 average. Each colour indicates a company, while grey indicates other sources of temperature increase. Source: Haustein (2025).

Heatwaves recorded over 2000-23 were, on average, 1.7C hotter due to climate change, according to the study. The authors find that emissions originating from carbon majors and their products contributed about half of the increase in intensity of heatwaves seen since pre-industrial times.

The authors then break down the contribution of emissions from each carbon major on each heatwave in their analysis.

For example, they find that the emissions linked to Saudi Aramco made 51 heatwaves at least 10,000 times more likely. They add that on average, emissions tied to the company made the 213 heatwaves 0.04C hotter.

Legal action

Attribution studies already play an important role in courts by providing evidence that helps judges to determine liability. 

Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith is a research associate in climate science and the law at the University of Oxford’s Sustainable Law Programme. He was not involved in the study, but has published separate work showing that the emissions linked to each of the six largest corporate emitters cause one heat-related death in Zurich alone, every summer.

Stuart-Smith tells Carbon Brief that the new paper is a “high-quality analysis and a meaningful step forward for the field of climate change attribution”. He adds:

“With more and more lawsuits aiming to hold high-emitting companies responsible for their contributions to climate change impacts or compel state and corporate actors to reduce their emissions and prevent rising climate harms, work like this provides the basis for well-informed judicial decision-making.”

Dr Yann Quilcaille is a researcher at ETH Zürich and lead author of the study. He stresses the importance of attribution research for court cases, telling Carbon Brief that he hopes his work “can be used by legal practitioners”.

However, he also says that his role as a scientist is not to assign “responsibility” for climate change, but to “provide information to governments for decision making and to courts for litigation”.

Earlier this year, Dr Christopher Callahan, the principal investigator of the IU Climate & Society Lab, published a study with Prof Justin Makin, an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of Dartmouth, which links trillions of dollars in economic losses to the extreme heat caused by emissions tied to oil and gas companies. 

Mankin tells Carbon Brief that the new paper is “very closely” linked to his research.

Callahan says the new paper is “an important contribution to an emerging literature that illustrates how individual emitters can be linked to the change risk of extreme climate conditions and human impacts”.

He explains that “this kind of evidence will be important in courtrooms – holding emitters legally accountable requires demonstrating a causal nexus between that emitter and a particularised harm suffered by a plaintiff”. 

Attribution

The cutting-edge field of extreme weather attribution seeks to establish the role that human-caused warming played in these events. Attribution studies have been carried out on hundreds of heatwaves all around the world, as shown in Carbon Brief’s interactive map.

The new paper uses one of the earliest and most commonly used methods of attribution, called “probabilistic attribution”.

Specifically, it uses the method set out by the World Weather Attribution initiative for its “rapid attribution” analyses.

The authors first chose a temperature “threshold” to define their heatwave. 

They then used a global climate model to simulate two worlds – one mirroring the world as it was during the heatwave and the other using the climate of 1850-1900. This second scenario is used to represent the climate in a world without human-caused climate change.

The authors run their models thousands of times in each scenario. As the world’s climate is inherently chaotic, each model “run” – individual simulations of how the climate progresses over many years – produces a slightly different progression of temperatures. This means that some runs simulate the heatwave, while others do not.

The authors count how many times the threshold temperature was in each model run. They then compared the likelihood of crossing the threshold temperature in the world with – and a world without – climate change.

For example, they find that the 2021 Pacific north-west heatwave was made 3.1C hotter due to human caused climate change and more than 10,000 times more likely. 

(A study by the WWA at the time of the heatwave found that the heatwave was made 150 times more likely. The discrepancy is due to differences in the definition of the event, as well as its “very unlikely nature” according to the study authors.)

Dr Frederieke Otto is a professor at Imperial College London and founder of the WWA initiative. She tells Carbon Brief that the new study is “very similar to some other recent studies on impacts, based on the hazard attribution method used by WWA”, but says that “this is the most high profile and wide-reaching one”.

Otto adds:

“I do hope that many more impact attribution studies will follow, based on our or other extreme event attribution studies. We need more research on this.”

Q&A: How China is adapting to ‘more frequent and intense’ heat extremes China Policy 04.09.25

Analysis: England’s most ethnically diverse areas are 15 times more likely to face extreme heat Heatwaves 12.08.25

Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world Attribution 18.11.24

Explainer: Why is climate change causing ‘record-shattering’ extreme heat? Heatwaves 27.08.24

Quilcaille, Y. et al. (2025), Systematic attribution of heatwaves to the emissions of carbon majors, Nature, doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09450-9

Original article by Ayesha Tandon republished from Carbon Brief under a CC license.

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
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)
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Continue ReadingStudy links world’s top oil and gas firms to 200 ‘more intense’ heatwaves

How MAGA Lobbying is Undermining EU Climate Rules

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Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog

Series: MAGA

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, U.S. President Donald Trump, and French President Emmanuel Macron. DeSmog collage. Credit: Faces of the World / Flickr (Macron), Steffen Prößdorf (Merz), Gage Skidmore / Flickr (Trump)

European leaders are bending to the demands of U.S. climate science deniers.

“The CSDDD is the greatest threat to America’s sovereignty since the fall of the Soviet Union,” the Heartland Institute, a pro-Trump U.S. think tank, tweeted on 31 March.

The Heartland Institute is one of the world’s leading climate science denial groups. It has helped to draft Donald Trump’s anti-climate policies, which have seen the president pledge to “drill baby drill” for more fossil fuels and once again pull the U.S. out of the flagship 2015 Paris Agreement.

Over recent months – along with a host of other Trump allies – the Heartland Institute has set its sights on a new target: the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

This vague acronym belies the potentially transformative impact of the new law. In its original form, the CSDDD sought to require large companies – and those in “high risk” sectors – trading in the EU to address human rights and environmental issues in their own operations and in their supply chains. High turnover companies would also have been forced to adopt a plan to align with the Paris Agreement, including setting emissions reduction targets.

The Heartland Institute and its anti-climate, anti-regulation peers are vocal opponents of the law – and launched an aggressive campaign to water it down, or even to see it scrapped entirely.

These groups, which are all part of the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) ecosystem, view the CSDDD as symbolic of the way in which “woke” governments are attempting to force citizens and global corporations to conform to a pro-diversity, pro-environment agenda.

Following Trump’s election in November, these MAGA groups wasted no time in formulating their plans to oppose this perceived agenda.

They focused in particular on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which attempt to create workplaces free from bias – and environmental, social and governance (ESG) schemes, which try to ensure that organisations are guided by responsible and sustainable practices, not just profit.

In December, barely a month after Trump’s victory, the Heritage Foundation – the group that wrote the key ‘Project 2025’ blueprint for the president’s second term – published a report entitled: “ESG, DEI, and What to Do About Them”.

In the report, the Heritage Foundation described ESG and DEI as “pernicious”, and called the CSDDD “a serious problem”.

Two months later, the State Financial Officers Foundation – an influential network of Republican finance officials – wrote an open letter calling on the new administration to “investigate” the CSDDD, claiming that the EU’s directives are based on “unscientific assumptions about the nature of climate change impacts” and “will force companies to incriminate themselves”.

This quickly filtered through to Trump’s Cabinet. On 12 February, Howard Lutnick, the president’s pick for commerce secretary, told a Senate committee that the CSDDD threatened to place “significant burdens” on U.S. companies, and that the Trump administration was exploring the use of “commercial tools” to mount a counter-attack against the EU’s environmental regulations.

Soon this rhetoric made its way to the White House. In March, as part of the worldwide tariffs implemented by the Trump administration, the president called the EU “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the world”.

But the EU hasn’t stood firm in the face of Trump’s war of words.

The EU has already announced that it will be scaling back the CSDDD and delaying its implementation. The number of companies within scope has been reduced by 80 percent. The firms in question will only be required to file due diligence reports every five years, and won’t be required to investigate the ESG operations of their indirect business partners. The implementation of the law has also been postponed until 2028.

But Trump’s MAGA hardliners are still not satisfied. In April, the Heartland Institute released an open letter signed by 31 other groups, calling for Congress and the Trump administration to “take immediate steps to counter the CSDDD’s implementation”, including “if necessary, imposing retaliatory trade policies that punish EU nations for eroding America’s sovereignty, freedoms, and prosperity.”

This backlash is now influencing European leaders. In late May, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for the CSDDD to be scrapped entirely. They claim it must be abandoned in order to defend the “competitiveness” of European corporations, with Macron stating that Europe must “synchronise with the U.S. and the rest of the world.”

This judgement signifies the appeasement of anti-climate pressure groups that are ideologically opposed to clean energy and climate science.

The Heartland Institute has denied that humans are driving climate change, which it has called a “delusion”, while the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 document urged Trump to “dismantle the administrative state”, reverse policies on climate action, slash restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrap state investment in renewable energy, and gut the Environmental Protection Agency.

If the EU waters down its climate policies in response to Trump’s pressure, it will have helped to send Project 2025 global.

The ‘Climate Cartel’

It’s unclear whether these MAGA groups – and the Trump administration – will ease up on the EU if the CSDDD is ditched entirely. They may simply use it as evidence that European lawmakers will buckle under enough pressure.

Indeed, MAGA’s opposition to the CSDDD is part of a multi-pronged campaign that seeks to dismantle global climate initiatives pioneered by both governments and corporations.

Much of the original groundwork for this campaign was undertaken by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and its chair Jim Jordan, a leading Trump supporter.

Last year, Jordan’s committee produced reports – and demanded evidence from major corporations – on a supposed “climate cartel” of “left-wing activists and major financial institutions”.

The committee alleged that some of the world’s biggest asset managers – that have questionable climate commitments – are conspiring to force American companies to decarbonise against their wishes.

BlackRock’s New York office. Credit: Anthony Quintano / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

As part of its “investigation”, the committee demanded information from more than 130 U.S.-based companies, retirement and pension programmes, as well as 60 U.S.-based asset managers.

In November, 11 Republican-led states sued BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – three of the world’s biggest asset managers – over their ESG policies. In West Virginia and Oklahoma, nearly two dozen banks have been barred from public contracts for trying to divest from fossil fuels.

These actions, along with the anti-climate rhetoric of Donald Trump, have had a chilling effect. In February last year, BlackRock, State Street, and JP Morgan Asset Management withdrew from Climate Action 100+, an investor-led initiative that works to ensure the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters take action on climate change.

Fast forward a year, and a growing list of major U.S. corporations are either cancelling or delaying their sustainability reports – designed to show how they are meeting their climate commitments.

And a new story from the investigative outlet CORRECTIV today reports that German insurance giants and investment firms are withdrawing from climate agreements, while companies are quietly shelving their sustainability policies, amid the anti-ESG backlash orchestrated by Trump and his acolytes.

As one sustainability expert at a financial firm told CORRECTIV: “We have to be careful not to harm the cause by sticking our necks out and becoming a target in the U.S.”

This article was produced with support from the European Media and Information Fund, managed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The sole responsibility for any content supported by the European Media and Information Fund lies with the author(s) and it may not necessarily reflect the positions of the EMIF and the Fund Partners, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute.

Original article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog

Continue ReadingHow MAGA Lobbying is Undermining EU Climate Rules

‘We Are Being Cooked Alive’: Wildfires Driven by Climate Crisis Ravage Europe

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

A firefighter works to extinguish a wildfire in the village of Vilaza in northwestern Spain on August 12, 2025.  (Photo: Miguel Riopa/AFP via Getty Images)

Fire-related deaths were reported in Turkey, Spain, Montenegro, and Albania.

With firefighters in southern Europe battling blazes that have killed people in multiple countries and forced thousands to evacuate, Spain’s environment minister on Wednesday called the wildfires a “clear warning” of the climate emergency driven by the fossil fuel industry.

While authorities have cited a variety of causes for current fires across the continent, from arson to “careless farming practices, improperly maintained power cables, and summer lightning storms,” scientists have long stressed that wildfires are getting worse as humanity heats the planet with fossil fuels.

The Spanish minister, Sara Aagesen, told the radio network Cadena SER that “the fires are one of the parts of the impact of that climate change, which is why we have to do all we can when it comes to prevention.”

“Our country is especially vulnerable to climate change. We have resources now but, given that the scientific evidence and the general expectation point to it having an ever greater impact, we need to work to reinforce and professionalize those resources,” Aagesen added in remarks translated by The Guardian.

The Spanish meteorological agency, AEMET, said on social media Wednesday that “the danger of wildfires continues at very high or extreme levels in most of Spain, despite the likelihood of showers in many areas,” and urged residents to “take extreme precautions!”

The heatwave impacting Spain “peaked on Tuesday with temperatures as high as 45°C (113°F),” according to Reuters. AEMET warned that “starting Thursday, the heat will intensify again,” and is likely to continue through Monday.

The heatwave is also a sign of climate change, Akshay Deoras, a research scientist in the Meteorology Department at the U.K.’s University of Reading, told Agence France-Presse this week.

“Thanks to climate change, we now live in a significantly warmer world,” Deoras said, adding that “many still underestimate the danger.”

There have been at least two fire-related deaths in Spain this week: a man working at a horse stable on the outskirts of the Spanish capital Madrid, and a 35-year-old volunteer firefighter trying to make firebreaks near the town of Nogarejas, in the Castile and León region.

Acknowledging the firefighter’s death on social media Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sent his “deepest condolences to their family, friends, and colleagues,” and wished “much strength and a speedy recovery to the people injured in that same fire.”

According to The New York Times, deaths tied to the fires were also reported in Turkey, Montenegro, and Albania. Additionally, The Guardian noted, “a 4-year-old boy who was found unconscious in his family’s car in Sardinia died in Rome on Monday after suffering irreversible brain damage caused by heatstroke.”

There are also fires in Greece, France, and Portugal, where the mayor of Vila Real, Alexandre Favaios, declared that “we are being cooked alive, this cannot continue.”

Reuters on Wednesday highlighted Greenpeace estimates that investing €1 billion, or $1.17 billion, annually in forest management could save 9.9 million hectares or 24.5 million acres—an area bigger than Portugal—and tens of billions of euros spent on firefighting and restoration work.

The European fires are raging roughly three months out from the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, which is scheduled to begin on November 10 in Belém, Brazil.

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

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
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)
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue Reading‘We Are Being Cooked Alive’: Wildfires Driven by Climate Crisis Ravage Europe

BlackRock Pivots from Sustainability Evangelists to Fossil-Fuel Funders

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Original article by Giorgio Michalopoulos and Stefano Valentino republished from DeSmog

Despite claiming a commitment to sustainability, the world’s largest investment fund continues to invest heavily in fossil fuels through its “green” funds — prompting accusations of greenwashing.

In the first quarter of 2025, BlackRock invested $3 billion in fossil-fuel companies through its funds that are defined as sustainable. Credit: Christopher Michel/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Claim to be verified: BlackRock offers its global clients sustainable investment products, which allegedly exclude fossil fuels.

Context: In the first quarter of 2025 only, the world’s largest asset manager invested US$3 billion in fossil-fuel companies through its funds defined as sustainable. BlackRock promotes them with language that is potentially misleading and likely to leave unwary investors believing that such products exclude fossil fuels.

In 2016, Larry Fink, CEO of investment firm BlackRock, had no doubts about the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG): “Over the long term, ESG issues – ranging from climate change to diversity to board effectiveness – have real and quantifiable financial impacts”, he wrote in a letter on corporate governance in 2016.

The CEO of the world’s largest asset-management company has since changed his mind: “The reason I backed away from using the term ESG is that it means something different to everyone. It’s so undefined that it’s become unmentionable”, Fink said in 2023, as a guest on the Wall Street Journal podcast “Free Expression”. In the same podcast, he added: “If you want to invest in hydrocarbons, we will select the best hydrocarbon companies in the world for you. If you want to invest in a more decarbonized portfolio, we’re going to try to find the best economic portfolio that will achieve your financial goal.”

BlackRock manages US$11.6 trillion of investments. The firm has drastically changed its ESG and sustainable-investing policies in recent years. In its 2020 letter to clients, BlackRock used the term “ESG” 26 times and made a bold assertion: “We believe that sustainability must become our new standard for investing.” It also pledged to launch a product “that allows clients to invest in companies with the highest ESG scores, using our most extensive exclusion criteria, including one for fossil fuels.”

These commitments were widely covered in the international media. In January 2020, the specialist magazine UK Investor headlined: “BlackRock to focus on ESG and climate change in 2020”. CNBC wrote: “BlackRock, a $7 trillion asset manager, puts climate change at the heart of its investment strategy for 2021.” The specialist publication ESG Today asked: “BlackRock is betting everything on sustainability: Why is this important?”

Glossary
The European Regulation on sustainability-related disclosures in the financial services sector (known as SFDR) introduces two categories of green investments: those that merely promote “environmental and/or social characteristics” (Article 8), known in the jargon as “light green”, and those that must be properly “sustainable” (Article 9), known as “dark green”. In both cases, certain additional details must be provided to the consumer/investor, namely: (1) information about how these characteristics are met and (2) if a benchmark is indicated, an explanation of how that benchmark is consistent with the advertised characteristics.

While asset managers can independently define the criteria by which they consider a fund to promote “environmental and/or social characteristics”, “Article 9” funds must meet more stringent criteria regarding renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. However, by exploiting semantic ambiguities, some managers still choose to sell funds that do not fall under Article 9 but rather under Article 8, while nonetheless labelling them as “sustainable and responsible” (i.e. dark green) investments.

To stay with the gambling theme, was BlackRock bluffing? In its 2025 letter, there is no reference to sustainability, ESG, or the Paris Climate Agreement. The company has left Net Zero Asset Managers, a global initiative launched in 2020 to promote net-zero 2050 projects. Following the departure of other major players such as JP Morgan, Net Zero Asset Managers has suspended its activities.

Yet, notwithstanding the ESG labels, the climate promises, and the pledges of “sustainability”, BlackRock continues to offer products that funnel money to the hydrocarbons giants.

BlackRock’s “sustainable” investments in fossil fuels

From 2023 to 2025, BlackRock invested an annual average of US$2.3 billion in the fossil-fuel majors through its ESG funds. The supposedly “green” funds we initially identified are those that make reference to the EU Sustainable Finance Regulation (SFDR), which came into force in 2021. Articles 8 and 9 of the SFDR concern the promotion of “environmental or social” objectives and “sustainable investments”, respectively.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/zNmlR/2/

In markets where sustainable finance is not regulated, BlackRock promotes funds that are entirely outside the SFDR definitions as “ESG”, “sustainable” and (energy) “transition”. These amounted to US$1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2025. The fact that sustainable finance is almost wholly unregulated in countries such as the United States allows BlackRock to use notably audacious names for products which continue to channel money to Big Oil. Examples include “iShares ESG Aware”, “iShares Global Clean Energy”, and “BlackRock Sustainable Advantage”.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/02UAz/4/

A US investor might thus be sold a BlackRock “Carbon Transition Readiness” fund that has funnelled more than ten million dollars to fossil giants including BP, Equinor, Shell, Eni, and TotalEnergies. The “Climate Conscious and Transition” fund, meanwhile, has pumped US$65 million into Chevron, ConocoPhillips, EOG, Exxon, and Occidental Petroleum.

Among the so-called “carbon majors” in which BlackRock invests through its supposedly green funds are many of the same names: TotalEnergies, Shell, Equinor, Chevron, Eni, and Repsol. All are heavy emitters of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. None, as we showed in the previous article in this series, is currently on track with its Paris Agreement targets.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/lRahP/4/

BlackRock appears to be disrespecting its own criteria

Contrary to Larry Fink’s statements in the Wall Street Journal podcast, our fact-checking reveals that over 20 funds classified as Article 8 or 9 (the “green” fund categories under EU regulations) have stakes in the oil giants. This despite the fact that their prospectuses contain commitments on ESG or decarbonisations, and may even openly renounce fossil-fuel investments.

For example, the iShares MSCI Europe Screened UCITS ETF (exchange-traded fund) explicitly states in the first lines of its description that it excludes exposure to “fossil-fuel extraction”. A BlackRock client who is not sufficiently versed in interpreting such claims might therefore reasonably expect companies such as Shell, TotalEnergies, and Eni to be excluded.

Screenshot of the prospectus for the iShares MSCI Europe Screened UCITS ETF: BlackRock states that it excludes “fossil-fuel extraction” from its investments. | Source: iShares.com
Screenshot of the prospectus for the iShares MSCI Europe Screened UCITS ETF: BlackRock states that it excludes “fossil-fuel extraction” from its investments. | Source: iShares.com

A closer look at the fund’s sustainability information shows that it is passively managed and follows the MSCI Europe Screened Index, aiming to promote environmental and social standards. This means the fund uses MSCI’s own rules for excluding certain companies — MSCI being one of the largest global financial firms.

To understand what these exclusion rules are, investors must go to MSCI’s website and read the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) methodology behind the index. While it initially appears that oil and gas are excluded, the detailed rules reveal otherwise. The index doesn’t exclude all fossil fuel companies. Instead, it only leaves out those earning more than 5% of their revenue from specific controversial sources: coal, unconventional oil and gas (like fracking or tar sands), palm oil, Arctic drilling, or companies that violate the UN Global Compact’s voluntary sustainability principles.

In short, the index allows most fossil fuel companies unless they cross certain thresholds. That’s why BlackRock, which uses this index, can claim in its prospectus to exclude fossil fuel extraction — but then clarify in other documents that it relies on MSCI’s criteria. In fact, BlackRock refers readers to MSCI’s methodology page for details — but that page leads to a 404 error.

This index, like many others we examined, claims to exclude companies involved in hydrocarbon extraction. However, it later clarifies that the exclusion applies only to “unconventional” projects, such as tar sands and Arctic drilling.

Despite this, many of the companies the funds invest in are still involved in these very activities. A detailed look at the rules and factsheets shows that there is often flexibility under vague categories like “other investments.” This loophole allows the funds to legally maintain their “sustainable” label, even while investing in companies that contradict it.

In its sustainability report, meanwhile, BlackRock makes a confusing claim that might raise eyebrows among the more attentive clients: “This Fund promotes environmental or social characteristics, but does not aim to invest sustainably.” The statement seems to conflict with the very description of the investment, which talks of “a meaningful approach” to sustainable investing.

To further protect itself, BlackRock makes clear that any sustainability conditions “do not change a fund’s investment objective or limit its investment universe, and there is no indication that a fund will adopt investment strategies focused on ESG factors, impact, or exclusion criteria”. BlackRock thus effectively contradicts its own promise to exclude fossil fuels.

In the first quarter of 2025, such nominally “green” funds held fossil-fuel assets worth more than US$1 billion.

Screenshot: MSCI Europe Screened Index fossil-fuel exclusion criteria. | Source: MSCI
Screenshot: MSCI Europe Screened Index fossil-fuel exclusion criteria. | Source: MSCI

Reviewing our findings, Nicolas Koch, from the NGO Sustainable Finance Observatory, comments: “We cannot expect customers to read all the information, and it is likely that most of them will be easily misled by statements that certain activities are completely excluded, when in fact they are not. However, the SFDR represents a major victory in terms of transparency in this regard. It should provide the necessary information to intermediaries, such as financial advisors, who could easily exclude this fund thanks to the SFDR.”https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/F5AuF/5/

In its “green” funds that specifically claim to exclude hydrocarbons from their portfolios, BlackRock holds fossil-fuel investments worth a total of US$850 million. The first lines of their prospectuses, in addition to mentioning the exclusion criteria, state that the investments are designed to reduce carbon impacts. 

In August 2024, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) introduced stricter rules on the use of sustainability-related terms in fund names. These rules prohibit funds with significant fossil fuel holdings from using labels like “green,” “ESG,” or “sustainable.” The regulation took effect on 21 May 2025.

Before that date, the iShares MSCI Europe Screened UCITS ETF included “ESG” in its name, despite holding US$177 million in fossil fuel companies. As of now, it still holds around US$156 million in firms like Shell, TotalEnergies, Eni, Equinor, EQT, Aker, and OMV. Yet, the fund claims it is designed for investors who want to “exclude controversial sectors and reduce carbon intensity.”

In the first quarter of 2025, the iShares MSCI EMU ESG Enhanced CTB UCITS ETF fund invested US$160 million in fossil-fuel assets. It carries the CTB label, referring to the Carbon Transition Benchmark, meaning that it should promote decarbonisation standards. According to the new guidelines of the ESMA, BlackRock is required to demonstrate in its sustainability reporting how its investments are “on a clear and measurable path towards social or environmental transition”.

In its sustainability disclosures, BlackRock states that it doesn’t practise “engagement” with companies. The term refers to the interaction between asset managers and companies in which they hold equity stakes through “green” funds, where the aim is to positively influence their ESG and climate policies. According to a report by the European Commission’s sustainable-finance platform, such engagement can have positive impacts on companies, and this should be measured and shared with clients. BlackRock has chosen a different path. According to its disclosures, it “does not directly engage with companies, focusing instead on the quality of ESG data (it is committed to engaging directly with data and index providers to ensure better analysis and stability of ESG metrics)”.

“This is not a good way to generate impact and offer a more decarbonised investment portfolio”, says Sustainable Finance Observatory’s Nicolas Koch. NGO ShareAction’s latest report reveals that BlackRock has reduced its support for ESG resolutions at shareholder meetings to almost zero percent, and its commitment to sustainability is not sufficient to be considered credible. “Therefore, for any impact-oriented retail investor who has purchased iShares ESG ETFs in the past or is considering purchasing them in the future, there is a clear recommendation: avoid these products and move toward funds that engage in credible dialogue with companies”, concludes Koch.

To date, none of the carbon majors, including those in which BlackRock’s green funds invest, appear to have energy-transition plans consistent with international climate goals

Robert Clarke, an expert at Client Earth, a nonprofit legal and environmental organisation, makes a similar point:

“There is a huge question mark over impact claims. This is another category of potential ‘transition-washing’. Many funds have been rebranded from ‘ESG’ or ‘sustainable’ to ‘transition funds’, highlighting a subset of them that focus on transition strategies. But the problem here is: what happens if a fund is labeled a transition fund but the investments are not consistent? An example of this, in our view, is continued investment in the expansion of fossil fuels, which is simply incompatible with the transition.”

To date, none of the carbon majors, including those in which BlackRock’s green funds invest, appear to have energy-transition plans consistent with international climate goals. In fact, many seem to have watered down their climate strategies over the past year, as reported in a Carbon Tracker report published in April 2025.

Specialists agree that engagement with companies and voting at shareholder meetings are the most effective mechanisms for ensuring that “sustainable” investments have an impact. A recent report by the Sustainable Finance Observatory shows that 51 percent of European investors want their investments to have an impact.

We asked ESMA whether it considers BlackRock’s statements on sustainability to be contradictory. “The supervisory authority of the related fund will have to determine whether it intends to investigate whether the disclosure may be unclear, incorrect, or misleading to investors”, a spokesperson said.

“BlackRock operates in one of the most highly regulated industries in the world, and our funds, their prospectuses, and their supporting documents, adhere to all applicable regulations,” a spokesperson for the bank told Voxeurop. He added: “For our sustainable range, this includes those governing sustainable investing. iShares ETF holdings are published daily to provide investors with full transparency into where their investments go, and our leading sustainable fund range offers a spectrum of exposures allowing our clients to choose how to meet their own individual investment goals.”

BlackRock accused of greenwashing by Client Earth

The obvious incompatibility between the names of “sustainable” funds and their Big Carbon investments was tackled head on by the environmental group Client Earth in October 2024.

The organisation filed a legal complaint with the French financial supervisory authority, the AMF, challenging BlackRock’s labelling of certain consumer-oriented funds as “sustainable”. It singled out products such as the BSF Systematic Sustainable Global Equity Fund, pointing out that such funds had channelled €1 billion to the fossil-fuel sector.

In its action, Client Earth argued that such labels mislead consumers and may violate EU regulations. “There are rules that require communications to be fair, clear, and not misleading”, said Robert Clarke. “It should be the responsibility of the regulatory authorities [of the country] where the funds are marketed to take action to combat greenwashing, not only in fund names but also in prospectuses, in order to protect their investment sector. At present, national authorities are failing to take action.” In the wake of the complaint, BlackRock has changed the names or exclusion criteria of several of its funds.

🤝 This article is published in collaboration with IrpiMedia; it is part of Voxeurop’s investigation into green finance and was produced with the support of the European Media Information Fund (EMIF)

Original article by Giorgio Michalopoulos and Stefano Valentino republished from DeSmog

Continue ReadingBlackRock Pivots from Sustainability Evangelists to Fossil-Fuel Funders

Trump Energy Department Blasted for ‘Unhinged’ Pro-Coal X Post

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

The U.S. Department of Energy shared an image of coal with the message, “She is the moment,” on social media on July 31, 2025. (Image: U.S. Department of Energy/X)

“The Trump administration wants us all choking, sick, misinformed, and working ourselves to death so that a few from the luxury class can be ever more wealthy,” said one science communicator.

The U.S. Department of Energy came under fire from scientists and other climate action advocates on Thursday for a social media post celebrating coal, as President Donald Trump works to boost the fossil fuel, despite its devastating impacts on public health and the planet.

On X—the platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who left the Trump administration earlier this year—the department shared an image of coal with the message, “She’s an icon. She’s a legend. And she is the moment.”

The audio of television host Wendy Williams saying that, while speaking about rapper Lil’ Kim, often has been repurposed by social media users. However, the DOE’s use of the phrase to glamorize coal sparked swift and intense backlash.

Much of the response came on X, with critics calling the post “some weird shit” and “literally unhinged.”

“POV: It’s 1885 and you work for the Department of Energy,” wrote Jonas Nahm, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who served on the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Joe Biden.

Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources replied: “She is inefficient. She is dirtier air. She is higher energy bills.”

Multiple X users pointed to coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, a condition that occurs when coal dust is inhaled—including California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office, which wrote, “She’s black lung.”

The national Democratic Party account said, “In April, Trump cut a program that gave free black lung screenings to coal miners.”

After U.S. District Judge Irene Berger—appointed by former President Barack Obama in West Virginia—issued a preliminary injunction against firings at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program, nearly 200 workers who screen coal miners for black lung were reinstated.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has taken various steps to attack the climate and benefit the fossil fuel industry, such as picking fracking CEO Chris Wright to lead DOE, signing coal-friendly executive orders in April and issuing proclamations that provide what the White House called “regulatory relief” for a range of facilities, including coal plants, earlier this month.

“Hard to fathom this coming from the DOE if there were any sane, reasonable, rational, or thoughtful government in control,” Graham Lau, an astrobiologist and science communicator, said of the department’s pro-coal X post. “The Trump administration wants us all choking, sick, misinformed, and working ourselves to death so that a few from the luxury class can be ever more wealthy. Coal is not the moment. Coal is not going to meet U.S. energy needs. Coal is not the way forward.”

Climate and clean energy investor Ramez Naam wrote, “She is the past,” and shared the graph below, which features data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration about coal consumption since 1960.

Ryan Katz-Rosene, an associate professor at Canada’s University of Ottawa studying contentious climate debates, quipped, “Just the U.S. Department of Energy shilling for one of the most destructive industries known to humanity cool cool cool.”

In the early 1900s, coal mining in the United States often killed more than 2,000 workers per year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration. Over the past decade, it has killed roughly 10 people annually.

It’s not just coal miners who are at risk. Research published in the journal Science two years ago found that “from 1999-2020, approximately 460,000 deaths in the Medicare population were attributable to coal electricity-generating emissions.”

Genevieve Guenther, founding director of End Climate Silence, said Thursday: “The fact that they’re coding coal as female is right in line with the fact that Trump is a rapist. They take everything they want, they think the planet is like a woman they can just exploit, and fuck whomever they hurt in the process.”

Several women have accused the president of sexual assault, including journalist E. Jean Carroll, who said he raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. Although Trump has denied the allegations, in 2023, a New York City jury found him civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.

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

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.

Continue ReadingTrump Energy Department Blasted for ‘Unhinged’ Pro-Coal X Post