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fridaysforfuture
'Jaw-Dropping' Analysis Shows Fossil Fuel Companies to Burn Through 62% of Carbon Budget
One researcher called the findings proof that a decarbonization pact signed by the companies "is little more than a forgery."
Jan 26, 2024
In another high-profile case of "greenwashing," the oil and gas companies that signed a decarbonization pact at last year's 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference have plans that would burn through around 62% of the carbon dioxide that can still be emitted without pushing global temperatures past 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
The figures come from a Global Witness analysis published Friday, which found that the more than 50 companies that signed the pact would release over 150 billion metric tons of climate pollution into the atmosphere by 2050.
"This analysis, while jaw-dropping, only reinforces what we've long known—that fossil fuel companies will stop at nothing to extract every last drop of profit from the world's remaining fossil reserves, no matter the cost," Friends of the Earth climate coordinator Jamie Peters said in a statement.
The Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter was launched at COP28 on December 2 by Saudi Arabia and conference president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who also heads the United Arab Emirates' state oil company. In the announcement, Al Jaber called it a "great first step" and said that companies representing more than 40% of global oil production had agreed to reach net-zero by or before 2050, end methane emissions, and stop routine flaring by 2030.
However, the pact has a major loophole, as Global Witness points out: It only covers emissions released by the companies directly, not by the use of their products once they are sold. These "scope 3" emissions represent as much as 90% of the oil and gas industry's total carbon footprint.
"After looking at the detail of this pact, signed to great backslapping by bosses of some of the world's largest polluters, I have only two questions: Who do these people think they are, and how stupid do they think we are?" asked Global Witness senior fossil fuels investigator Patrick Galey in a statement.
"If a child promises to do less than 10% of their homework, they don't get a gold star. So why are oil and gas bosses congratulating themselves for signing up to rules they wrote themselves and which only address 10% of their companies' contribution to the climate crisis?" Galey asked.
"The only way to slash emissions from usage of oil and gas is to cut demand."
Global Witness used data from Rystad Energy to look at the production plans of the pact's signatories—which include major state and private companies such as Saudi Aramco, Al Jaber's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), ExxonMobil, and Shell—and then calculated the total emissions of those plans through 2050.
It found that the companies would produce 265 billion barrels of oil and 26.7 billion cubic meters of gas by 2050, and that this would result in 156 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, or approximately 62% of the remaining carbon budget.
"This pact is little more than a forgery, publicly committing each company to address its outsize contribution to global heating, while privately allowing them to produce and sell billions of barrels of oil and gas for decades more," Galey said.
Of the companies who signed the pact, those with the largest carbon footprints through 2050 were:
- ADNOC and Saudi Aramco, with plans to emit more than a quarter of the remaining climate budget; and
- ExxonMobil, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, and Shell, with plans to emit as much as the European Union does in 15 years.
"You'd think the hottest year in the last 125,000 would be enough to end greenwashing once and for all—but since it wasn't, let's state it plainly. No means no—there's not a way to square 'decarbonization' with fossil fuel expansion," 350.org and Third Act co-founder Bill McKibben said in a statement. "They mean the exact opposite."
The fact that the pact was announced at COP28, along with the high future footprint of ADNOC, calls into question the effectiveness of U.N. climate talks, especially when hosted by major fossil fuel-producing nations like the UAE. This year's COP29 is scheduled to take place in oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan, and will be presided over by a former oil executive.
"COP28 has shown that the profits of fossil fuel companies receive more care than the most affected regions of the world," Luisa Neubauer, climate activist and co-organizer of the Fridays for Future climate strike movement, said in a statement. "Parts of the COP agreement sound like a Christmas present for the fossil fuel lobby. Compared to what is needed in the hottest year in human history, the COP agreement is not even close to enough. The future will lie primarily in the hands of those who resist new coal, oil, and gas projects locally and globally."
Campaigners said that governments must act to phase out fossil fuels.
"This powerful analysis by Global Witness highlights that the operations of the fossil fuel industry make up a tiny proportion of the total carbon emissions from the sector," Cara Jenkinson, the cities manager at climate charity Ashden, said in a statement. "The only way to slash emissions from usage of oil and gas is to cut demand—governments across the world must speed up their electrification plans, with poorer nations being supported to bypass fossil fuel vehicles and ramp up clean renewable energy production."
Galey concluded: "We need a rapid and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels, and fossil fuel bosses must be locked out of climate talks. Everything else is marketing and spin, pure and simple."
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'A Reckoning': 500 Groups Endorse March to End Fossil Fuels
"The March to End Fossil Fuels isn't a request," one organizer said "It's a demand for President Biden to enact actionable solutions that match the scale of the crisis at hand."
Sep 05, 2023
A total of 500 international, national, and local organizations have endorsed the September 17 March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City, leaders behind the event announced Tuesday.
The march comes ahead of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' Climate Ambition Summit and follows a summer of fossil-fueled extreme weather that smothered the Northeast and Midwest in wildfire smoke, flooded the streets of Vermont's state capital, devastated the town of Lahaina in Maui, and baked Phoenix under 31 days of more than 110°F heat.
"It's never been more clear than now–a summer of record heat, deadly fires, and devastating floods–that we need to unite to put an end to fossil fuels," Oil Change International U.S. program manager Allie Rosenbluth said in a statement. "Every new fossil fuel project is incompatible with a livable future."
Oil Change International is one of the march's main organizers, along with the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Organizing Hub, Food & Water Watch, Fridays For Future USA & NYC, Earthworks, Greenfaith, Indigenous Environmental Network, New York Communities for Change, and Oil & Gas Action Network.
They have been joined more recently by the Sunrise Movement, the Sierra Club, and the NAACP, as well as by prominent activists and progressive politicians like Jane Fonda, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Mark Ruffalo, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), and Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson.
The march will call President Joe Biden to stop approving new fossil fuel projects, end oil and gas drilling on public lands, declare a climate emergency, and ensure a just transition to renewable energy that provides good jobs and respects local communities.
"The same voices that called him to the presidency are now calling on him to take bold climate action."
"With 500 organizations strong, the March to End Fossil Fuels isn't a request, it's a demand for President Biden to enact actionable solutions that match the scale of the crisis at hand," Olivia Leirer, co-executive director of New York Communities for Change, said in a statement.
The march comes as Republican candidates are already jostling to decide who will face Biden in the 2024 presidential election, and younger activists warned that Biden's approval of carbon bombs like the Willow Project or the Mountain Valley Pipeline could hurt him with the youth voters who helped him win in 2020.
"In the past three years many of us have lost the passion and hope we originally had when fighting for Biden," Fridays For Future NYC Organizer Noa Greene-Houvras said in a statement. "We have watched him approve pipelines and fossil fuel projects that youth have consistently pushed against. The same voices that called him to the presidency are now calling on him to take bold climate action."
Organizers also emphasize the impact that the burning of oil, gas, and coal and the pollution and extreme weather it generates have on communities across the country, especially low-income or minority communities.
"The current reliance on fossil fuels is literally killing Black Americans," NAACP director for the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice Abre' Conner said in a statement. "Black elders are three times more likely to die from air quality-related issues and Black youth continue to suffer the impacts of living in communities that are more likely to house fossil fuel plants and other toxic waste incinerators."
"This is an emergency," Conner added. "For Black communities to have any hope of a just and sustainable future, we must act now."
The New York march is part of a larger international escalation against fossil fuels launched in June and timed for the weekend before Guterress' September 20 summit, which asks nations for the first time to present plans for phasing out fossil fuels and ceasing production of the climate-warming energy sources.
It will begin from 56th Street and Broadway at 1 pm Eastern Daylight Time, move down Broadway to 52nd Street, and then follow 52nd Street to First Avenue for a rally at First and 50th outside U.N. headquarters. Organizers expect thousands of participants, and to join them, you can RSVP here.
"We demand President Biden wield his power, to usher in the end of fossil fuels so our planet and people can thrive," Rosenbluth said. "We join together for the March to End Fossil Fuels, not just to ask for change, but for a reckoning."
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'The Fight Has Only Just Begun': Greta Thunberg Pledges More Protests After Final School Strike
"When I started striking in 2018 I could never have expected that it would lead to anything," Thunberg tweeted in a reflection on the Fridays For Future movement on the day of her graduation.
Jun 09, 2023
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg—who launched a global movement when she began skipping school to protest in front of the Swedish parliament nearly five years ago–carried out her last school strike on Friday.
"School strike week 251," Thunberg tweeted. "Today, I graduate from school, which means I'll no longer be able to school strike for the climate."
\u201cSchool strike week 251. Today, I graduate from school, which means I\u2019ll no longer be able to school strike for the climate. This is then the last school strike for me, so I guess I have to write something on this day.\nThread\ud83e\uddf5\u201d— Greta Thunberg (@Greta Thunberg) 1686300230
Thunberg, who is now 20, first made headlines at the age of 15 when she refused to attend school during the three-week lead-up to September Swedish elections in an effort to persuade politicians to take action on the climate crisis.
Instead, she sat outside the Swedish parliament with a sign reading, "School strike for climate," in Swedish.
"We young people don't have the vote, but school is obligatory," Thunberg toldThe Local at the time. "So this [is] a way to get our voices heard."
"There are probably many of us who graduate who now wonder what kind of future it is that we are stepping into, even though we did not cause this crisis."
On the day of her final school strike, Thunberg took the opportunity to reflect on the movement she helped galvanize.
"When I started striking in 2018 I could never have expected that it would lead to anything," she tweeted. "After striking every day for three weeks, we were a small group of children who decided to continue doing this every Friday. And we did, which is how Fridays For Future was formed."
The movement went global "quite suddenly," Thunberg recalled.
"During 2019, millions of youth striked from school for the climate, flooding the streets in over 180 countries," she said.
Fridays For Future found a different way to protest during the coronavirus lockdowns by launching a #digitalclimatestrike.
"In a crisis we change our behavior and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society," Thunberg wrote at the time.
However, one group that hasn't changed their behavior are the world leaders Thunberg has famously excoriated in a number of high-profile speeches. A study released Thursday found that greenhouse gas emissions rose to record levels in the last decade despite the promises of the Paris agreement.
"Much has changed since we started, and yet we have much further to go," Thunberg tweeted Friday. "We are still moving in the wrong direction, where those in power are allowed to sacrifice marginalized and affected people and the planet in the name of greed, profit, and economic growth."
Thunberg has spoken up for frontline communities recently. In January, she was detained while protesting the destruction of a German village to pave the way for a coal mine expansion, and in February, she joined with Norwegian Sami activists in opposing the placement of wind turbines on Indigenous land.
While graduation is typically a joyful occasion, Thunberg reflected on how the climate crisis has altered her generation's vision of the future.
"There are probably many of us who graduate who now wonder what kind of future it is that we are stepping into, even though we did not cause this crisis," she wrote.
Whatever Thunberg's future contains, climate activism will continue to be part of it.
"We who can speak up have a duty to do so. In order to change everything, we need everyone. I'll continue to protest on Fridays, even though it's not technically 'school striking,'" she promised.
"We simply have no other option than to do everything we possibly can," Thunberg concluded. "The fight has only just begun."
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