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Ending Oil Subsidies, Taxing the Rich Could Help Free Up $5 Trillion a Year for Climate: Report

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Wildfires are seen in San Marcos Sierra, Cordoba province, Argentina, on September 23, 2024. (Photo: Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)

“The real question isn’t whether we can afford to act, but whether we can afford not to.”

Research published Tuesday estimates that rich countries could mobilize over $5 trillion a year for climate action worldwide by cutting off subsidies to the oil and gas industry, imposing a levy on big polluters, and cracking down on tax evasion by large corporations and the rich.

The new report from Oil Change International (OCI) was released as world leaders gathered in New York City for high-level United Nations General Assembly talks, a meeting that comes less than two months before the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.

OCI’s research, which includes a fact sheet outlining various proposals to raise funds for climate action, stresses that “there is no shortage of public money available for rich countries to pay their fair share on fair terms for climate action at home and abroad.”

“The urgency and extent of growing economic inequality, unfair sovereign debt crises, climate disasters, and fossil fuel profits have created significant momentum towards many of these measures in international and domestic policy spheres,” OCI’s research brief notes. “Finance has been in the spotlight in most major international political fora in the past few years in recognition that our current financial architecture is a major driver of these overlapping crises.”

Among the proposals laid out in OCI’s brief are an equitable end to “public finance, direct subsidies, and state-owned company investments in fossil fuels,” which could raise $846 billion a year globally; a “climate damages tax” on fossil fuel extraction, which could raise $618 billion a year; a 25% minimum corporate tax rate, which could raise $479 billion annually; and a wealth tax on billionaires, which could raise roughly $2.60 trillion a year in the Global North and over $5.6 trillion worldwide.

Laurie van der Burg, OCI’s public finance lead, said that the rich nations most responsible for the climate emergency “owe this money to Global South countries that have not caused this crisis and need fair finance to deliver strong climate plans next year that phase out fossil fuels.”

“This is essential to avoid climate breakdown and save lives,” she added.

The COP29 climate summit will take place a year after nations agreed at COP28 to transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems” in a “just, orderly, and equitable manner.”

The success of that pledge, OCI said, depends on rich nations contributing massively to global climate finance after years of falling short of their pledges and continuing to expand fossil fuel extraction and handouts. Worldwide, environmentally harmful subsidies—including fossil fuel subsidies—have surged to $2.6 trillion a year, according to a report released last week.

“Global North countries have a responsibility to redirect their share of these subsidies in support of climate action,” OCI said Tuesday.

The new report comes on the heels of a record-hot summer and amid devastating extreme weather, from massive flooding across Europe and Africa to wildfires in South America.

Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, said Tuesday that “the real question isn’t whether we can afford to act, but whether we can afford not to.”

“It is a bitter irony that rich nations hide behind claims of fiscal restraint, yet trillions are still spent on fossil fuel subsidies and militarization,” said Sieber. “The truth is simple: the money exists, but the political will does not. By treating climate finance as a zero-sum game, wealthy countries not only deepen global inequality but also undermine their own futures.”

“The energy transition isn’t charity—it’s an investment in global stability and security,” Sieber added. “Ignoring the need for support only worsens the climate crisis, which knows no borders.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingEnding Oil Subsidies, Taxing the Rich Could Help Free Up $5 Trillion a Year for Climate: Report

‘Colossal Waste’: U.S. Leads Way in Public Spending on False Climate Solutions

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Original article by Julia Conley republished form Common Dreams under a CC licence.

The Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project is seen on December 20, 2016 in Houston, Texas.
 (Photo: Marie D. De Jesus/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

“The fossil fuel industry delays climate action, distracts from real solutions that would end the fossil fuel era, and does everything in its power to squeeze the last drops of profit from a dying industry, at the expense of all of us.”

Among the world’s wealthiest countries, the U.S. leads the way in spending public money on so-called climate “solutions” that have been proven to “consistently fail, overspend, or underperform,” according to an analysis released Thursday by the research and advocacy group Oil Change International.

The group’s report, titled Funding Failure, focuses on international spending on carbon capture and fossil-based hydrogen subsidies, which continues despite ample data showing that the technological fixes have “failed to make a dent in carbon emissions” after 50 years of research and development.

The report details how five countries account for 95% of all carbon capture spending, with the U.S. investing the most taxpayer money in the technology, at $12 billion in subsidies over the last 40 years.

Norway comes in second with $6 billion going to carbon capture and storage, while Canada has spent $3.8 billion, the European Union has spent $3.6 billion, and the Netherlands has poured $2.6 billion into the technology, with which carbon dioxide emissions are compressed and utilized or stored underground.

“It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it.”

Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, told The Guardian that the subsidies amount to a “colossal waste of money.”

“It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it,” said Singh.

While proponents claim carbon capture and storage reduces planet-heating carbon emissions, OCI notes, it was originally developed in the 1970s “to enhance oil production, and this remains its primary use,” with the technology “barely” reducing emissions.

High-profile carbon capture failures in the U.S. include the Petra Nova project in Houston, Texas, which cost nearly $200 million in taxpayer funds and whose captured emissions were later used for crude oil production, and the FutureGen project, “which swallowed $200 million and never materialized.”

“Investing in carbon capture delays the transition to renewable energy,” reads OCI’s report. “Instead of wasting time and money on technologies that do not work, governments must commit to justly and urgently phasing out fossil fuels before it’s too late.”

Despite the lack of data supporting the use of carbon capture, the group said, countries including the U.S. are “preparing to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on these ineffective technologies, further benefiting the fossil fuel industry.”

OCI highlighted how the U.S. and Canada, while ostensibly fighting the climate crisis, have spent a combined $4 billion in public money to explicitly “pay oil companies to produce more oil,” with the subsidies going to carbon capture for “enhanced oil recovery.”

The report also found that in addition to the $12 billion in taxpayer funds the U.S. has spent on carbon capture and fossil hydrogen—a leak-prone gas produced through energy-intensive processes that cause their own emissions—the government has spent an estimated $1.3 billion on the 45Q tax credit, which allows companies to write off tax for every ton of carbon dioxide they store underground.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) increased the amount given to companies in 45Q tax credits from $35 to $60 per ton, meaning that the subsidy could grow to over $100 billion in the next 10 years.

OCI’s Policy Tracker shows that overall public spending on carbon capture and hydrogen could grow by between $115 billion and $240 billion in the coming decades.

“We need real climate action, not fossil fuel bailouts!” said OCI in a post on social media.

The group’s report also highlights that fossil fuel giants such as ExxonMobil have shifted from carbon capture skeptics to outspoken proponents of the technology—with the company bragging to investors that carbon capture and hydrogen would help its Low Carbon Business Unit make “hundreds of billions of dollars” and grow to be “larger than ExxonMobil’s base business.”

Exxon didn’t launch its carbon capture efforts until 2018, having spent several years and hundreds of millions of dollars on another “climate solution” that ultimately failed: the use of algae to make biofuels.

Since then, Exxon has “pushed for direct government funding for carbon capture, particularly at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),” successfully lobbying for $12 billion allocated in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in 2021 for “carbon management research, development, and demonstration.”

Exxon also lobbied for the increased rate of the 45Q tax credit in the IRA and “played a ‘central role’ in drafting a 2019 DOE-sponsored report on carbon capture that determined Congress would need to create an incentive of around $90 to $110 per ton to support carbon capture deployment,” according to OCI.

The Guardian on Thursday reported that Exxon still “chases billions in U.S. subsidies for a ‘climate solution’ that helps drill more oil,” describing how the oil giant hosted an event at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month where senior climate strategy and technology director Vijay Swarup praised the IRA for helping Exxon pursue carbon capture and said: “We need new technology and we need policy to support that technology. We need governments working with private industry.”

Exxon’s enthusiasm for carbon capture, said OCI, is an example of how “the fossil fuel industry delays climate action, distracts from real solutions that would end the fossil fuel era, and does everything in its power to squeeze the last drops of profit from a dying industry, at the expense of all of us.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished form Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Continue Reading‘Colossal Waste’: U.S. Leads Way in Public Spending on False Climate Solutions

‘Big Win’: UK Won’t Defend Fossil Fuel Projects in North Sea

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Activists hold a white sign reading “Rosebank will kill us” on September, 27, 2023 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo: Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

Oceana U.K.’s leader called the decision “a massive win for campaigners and another step towards… a cleaner, greener future for our seas, planet, and climate.”

Climate campaigners celebrated Thursday after the United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced it will not legally defend decisions to allow controversial offshore drilling in a pair of areas in the North Sea.

The two sites are Shell’s Jackdaw gas field and the Rosebank oil field, owned by Equinor and Ithaca Energy. Both projects have been loudly criticized by international green groups as well as U.K. opponents.

“This is amazing news and a BIG WIN for the climate. The government must now properly support affected workers and prioritize investment in green jobs,” declared Greenpeace U.K., which along with the group Uplift had demanded judicial reviews.

The approvals for both North Sea sites occurred under Conservative rule—in 2022 for Jackdaw and last year for Rosebank, the country’s biggest untapped oil field. Voters handed control of the government back to the Labour Party in May.

Then, as The Guardian detailed, “in June, the cases against the oil and gas fields received a boost when the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that ‘scope 3’ emissions—that is, the burning of fossil fuels rather than just the building of the infrastructure to do so—should be taken into account when approving projects.”

“Now we need to see a just transition plan for workers and communities across the U.K. and an end extraction in the North Sea for good!”

The U.K. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, led by Secretary Ed Miliband, cited the “landmark” Supreme Court ruling in a Thursday statement that highlighted the government’s decision not to defend the approvals “will save the taxpayer money” and “this litigation does not mean the licences for Jackdaw and Rosebank have been withdrawn.”

“Oil and gas production in the North Sea will be a key component of the U.K. energy landscape for decades to come as it transitions to our clean energy future in a way that protects jobs,” the department claimed, while also pledging to “consult later this year on the implementation of its manifesto position not to issue new oil and gas licenses to explore new fields.”

Welcoming the U.K. government’s acceptance of the recent high court ruling, Uplift founder and executive director Tessa Khan said on social media that “the immediate consequence… is that the Scottish Court of Session is very likely to quash the decision approving Rosebank, although we’re likely to have to wait a while before that’s confirmed.”

“If Equinor and Ithaca Energy decide they still want to press ahead with developing the field,” Khan explained, “then the next step will be for them to submit a new environmental statement to the [government] and regulator… that includes the scope 3 emissions from the field.”

“If you need reminding, those emissions are massive: the same as 56 coal-fired power plants running for a year or the annual emissions of the world’s 28 poorest countries,” she added. “If Equinor and Ithaca try to push Rosebank through again, the U.K. [government] must reject it.”

Greenpeace similarly stressed that “Rosebank and Jackdaw would generate a vast amount of emissions while doing nothing to lower energy bills,” and “the only real winners from giving them the greenlight would be greedy oil giants Shell and Equinor.”

“To lower bills, improve people’s health, upgrade our economy,” the group argued, the government must: increase renewable energy; better insulate homes; and boost support for green jobs.

Celebrations over the government’s decision and calls for further action weren’t limited to the groups behind the legal challenges.

Oceana U.K. executive director praised the “incredible work” by Greenpeace and Uplift, and called the government dropping its defense “a massive win for campaigners and another step towards… a cleaner, greener future for our seas, planet, and climate.”

Oil Change International also applauded the government’s “incredibly important and correct decision.”

“There is no defending more fossil fuel extraction,” the organization said. “Now we need to see a just transition plan for workers and communities across the U.K. and an end extraction in the North Sea for good!”

Global Witness similarly celebrated the government’s move, declaring on social media that “this is brilliant news!”

“New oilfields are an act of climate vandalism,” the group added. “Governments must prioritize people, not polluters’ profit.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Continue Reading‘Big Win’: UK Won’t Defend Fossil Fuel Projects in North Sea

‘Colossal Waste’: US Leads Way in Public Spending on False Climate Solutions

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

The Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project is seen on December 20, 2016 in Houston, Texas.  (Photo: Marie D. De Jesus/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

“The fossil fuel industry delays climate action, distracts from real solutions that would end the fossil fuel era, and does everything in its power to squeeze the last drops of profit from a dying industry, at the expense of all of us.”

Among the world’s wealthiest countries, the U.S. leads the way in spending public money on so-called climate “solutions” that have been proven to “consistently fail, overspend, or underperform,” according to an analysis released Thursday by the research and advocacy group Oil Change International.

The group’s report, titled Funding Failure, focuses on international spending on carbon capture and fossil-based hydrogen subsidies, which continues despite ample data showing that the technological fixes have “failed to make a dent in carbon emissions” after 50 years of research and development.

The report details how five countries account for 95% of all carbon capture spending, with the U.S. investing the most taxpayer money in the technology, at $12 billion in subsidies over the last 40 years.

Norway comes in second with $6 billion going to carbon capture and storage, while Canada has spent $3.8 billion, the European Union has spent $3.6 billion, and the Netherlands has poured $2.6 billion into the technology, with which carbon dioxide emissions are compressed and utilized or stored underground.

“It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it.”

Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, told The Guardian that the subsidies amount to a “colossal waste of money.”

“It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it,” said Singh.

While proponents claim carbon capture and storage reduces planet-heating carbon emissions, OCI notes, it was originally developed in the 1970s “to enhance oil production, and this remains its primary use,” with the technology “barely” reducing emissions.

High-profile carbon capture failures in the U.S. include the Petra Nova project in Houston, Texas, which cost nearly $200 million in taxpayer funds and whose captured emissions were later used for crude oil production, and the FutureGen project, “which swallowed $200 million and never materialized.”

“Investing in carbon capture delays the transition to renewable energy,” reads OCI’s report. “Instead of wasting time and money on technologies that do not work, governments must commit to justly and urgently phasing out fossil fuels before it’s too late.”

Despite the lack of data supporting the use of carbon capture, the group said, countries including the U.S. are “preparing to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on these ineffective technologies, further benefiting the fossil fuel industry.”

OCI highlighted how the U.S. and Canada, while ostensibly fighting the climate crisis, have spent a combined $4 billion in public money to explicitly “pay oil companies to produce more oil,” with the subsidies going to carbon capture for “enhanced oil recovery.”

The report also found that in addition to the $12 billion in taxpayer funds the U.S. has spent on carbon capture and fossil hydrogen—a leak-prone gas produced through energy-intensive processes that cause their own emissions—the government has spent an estimated $1.3 billion on the 45Q tax credit, which allows companies to write off tax for every ton of carbon dioxide they store underground.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) increased the amount given to companies in 45Q tax credits from $35 to $60 per ton, meaning that the subsidy could grow to over $100 billion in the next 10 years.

OCI’s Policy Tracker shows that overall public spending on carbon capture and hydrogen could grow by between $115 billion and $240 billion in the coming decades.

“We need real climate action, not fossil fuel bailouts!” said OCI in a post on social media.

The group’s report also highlights that fossil fuel giants such as ExxonMobil have shifted from carbon capture skeptics to outspoken proponents of the technology—with the company bragging to investors that carbon capture and hydrogen would help its Low Carbon Business Unit make “hundreds of billions of dollars” and grow to be “larger than ExxonMobil’s base business.”

Exxon didn’t launch its carbon capture efforts until 2018, having spent several years and hundreds of millions of dollars on another “climate solution” that ultimately failed: the use of algae to make biofuels.

Since then, Exxon has “pushed for direct government funding for carbon capture, particularly at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),” successfully lobbying for $12 billion allocated in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in 2021 for “carbon management research, development, and demonstration.”

Exxon also lobbied for the increased rate of the 45Q tax credit in the IRA and “played a ‘central role’ in drafting a 2019 DOE-sponsored report on carbon capture that determined Congress would need to create an incentive of around $90 to $110 per ton to support carbon capture deployment,” according to OCI.

The Guardian on Thursday reported that Exxon still “chases billions in U.S. subsidies for a ‘climate solution’ that helps drill more oil,” describing how the oil giant hosted an event at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month where senior climate strategy and technology director Vijay Swarup praised the IRA for helping Exxon pursue carbon capture and said: “We need new technology and we need policy to support that technology. We need governments working with private industry.”

Exxon’s enthusiasm for carbon capture, said OCI, is an example of how “the fossil fuel industry delays climate action, distracts from real solutions that would end the fossil fuel era, and does everything in its power to squeeze the last drops of profit from a dying industry, at the expense of all of us.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Continue Reading‘Colossal Waste’: US Leads Way in Public Spending on False Climate Solutions

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