World leaders are in the throws of severe cognitive dissonance.
As more alarming reports drop onto their bureaux — record heat, melting ice, disrupted agriculture, wildfires, flooding, etc. — they talk about the need for urgent climate action. But who will deliver what’s required, a transformation demanding greater scale and speed than humanity has ever achieved? Will it be the governments of the richest countries of the world taking it upon themselves to tackle the first-order issue: fossil fuel production and all the systems that flow from that? They will not. They lack the money, they say.
Rather, they tell us that the markets, Big Oil itself, will find the solution — the very forces that got us into this mess. As early as 1977, Exxon’s top scientists warned that CO2 emissions would lead to 2-3 degrees warming — an analysis that is consistent with the scientific consensus today. Now, the ruling classes seek to convince us that these companies, which knew what they were doing to the planet and hid the truth, will perform a dazzling volte-face and change course, “doing well by doing good”.
Later this year, they will come together in Dubai for COP28, the United Nations’ annual climate change summit, under the leadership of Sultan Al Jaber (more on him shortly). There they are meant to negotiate towards reducing CO2 emissions. In 28 editions of the Conference, they have never achieved a decline. The only noticeable reductions were caused by economic shocks: the 2008 global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Perhaps under the stewardship of Al Jaber, the leaders of the richest countries in the world might act in the interests of our planet and its inhabitants. The one sticking point is that would mean a clear and binding plan for a phased reduction in fossil fuel production; Al Jaber is the chief executive of an oil company.
Al Jaber’s day job is no aberration. It exemplifies the strategy the rich and powerful are pursuing on climate breakdown and the energy transition — and why that strategy is failing so terribly.
Last year the five largest private sector oil companies — or Big Oil, if you prefer: Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies — racked up nearly $200 billion in profits. Earlier this year, Shell reduced its investments in green energy and internally estimated that net zero won’t be reached until the 22nd century. TotalEnergies has ploughed its profits into expanding new fossil fuel projects even faster than the other four.
They are doubling down on their bonanza, consequences be damned. And why wouldn’t they? The existing global order privileges those that can exploit the crises that affect us for profit. An energy crisis? Record Big Oil profits. A global pandemic? Record
Big Pharma profits. War and rising geopolitical tensions? Runaway weapons company share prices. All while millions face poverty, indignity, exploitation, and violence.
The world’s hangmen won’t release the noose from our necks voluntarily. Instead of pleading with Big Oil and the Global North states that support it, we have to build a counter-power so formidable it can dictate the terms of planetary restoration and human flourishing. Capitalism and imperialism cannot resolve the crises they created.
In solidarity,
The Progressive International Secretariat
