This article is three years old but now this is even worse. ‘Grotesque greed’: immoral fossil fuel profits must be taxed, says UN chief. Guardian Matthew Taylor Wed 3 Aug 2022 António Guterres urges governments to introduce windfall levies and use money to support vulnerable people. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described the record profits of oil and gas companies as immoral and urged governments to introduce a windfall tax, using the money to help those in the most need.
Speaking in New York on Wednesday, Guterres said the “grotesque greed” of the fossil fuel companies and their financial backers had led to the combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year hitting almost $100bn (£82bn). “It is immoral for oil and gas companies to be making record profits from this energy crisis on the backs of the poorest people and communities, at a massive cost to the climate,” he said. “I urge all governments to tax these excessive profits, and use the funds to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times.” Earlier this week, BP was the latest fossil fuel giant to announce huge gains, revealing it had tripled its profits to nearly £7bn in the second quarter of the year amid high oil prices during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Guterres said such profits were unacceptable as people around the world faced financial ruin. “Household budgets everywhere are feeling the pinch from high food, transport and energy prices, fuelled by climate breakdown and war. “This threatens a starvation crisis for the poorest households, and severe cutbacks for those on average incomes.” He said that alongside a windfall tax on excessive profits governments must do more to manage energy demand and accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources which are cheaper than oil and gas.....read on     ‘Grotesque greed’: immoral fossil fuel profits must be taxed......read on     https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/03/greed-of-fossil-fuel-companies-is-grotesque-says-un-secretary-general

Renewables might now be cheaper than fossil fuel in the vast majority of cases, but this makes them less attractive to capital, not more. Fossil fuels are uncompetitive and highly profitable. Renewables are highly competitive and not very profitable. As a result, fossil fuel extractors will fight tooth and nail to prevent market forces from operating. They demand the equivalent of the royal monopolies granted by the English Crown centuries ago, excluding competitors and enabling old technologies to fend off newer ones. Their enormous profits allow them to bend politics to their will, attacking and maligning their critics, sowing disinformation and denial and assisting the election of those who favour them. In Donald Trump, they have found the monarch who will grant them their exclusive charter. Over the past year, the Guardian’s reporters have documented the methods used by this industry to maintain its profits pipeline. These range from bankrolling Trump’s election to extract the brutal environmental rollbacks he has ordered on its behalf, to the unprecedented congressional lobbying campaign it has financed, to the funding of secretive junktanks and the financial fuelling of the far right – which channels, as it has done throughout its history, the demands of powerful corporations and oligarchs. 

Around the world, oil, gas and coal companies use an ever-widening set of tactics to crush competition and opposition, including lawsuits that seem designed to shut down environmental groups. Those who seek to defend the world from climate disaster and the tipping of Earth systems it could find themselves confronting a ruthless and deadly force. Now there is uncertainty. Last week, a few dozen residents and activists held a protest event next to the sprawling plant, which hummed and whirred in the summer heat, one 650ft chimney puncturing the horizon, another, smaller flue striped red and white, like a candy cane.Dozens of train cars full of coal, hastily procured after the plant’s supply was used up ahead of a closure that has been scheduled for four years, backed up in the sunshine. When burned in the huge 1.5GW plant, this coal emits about 7.7m tons of carbon dioxide a year.“Trump is just trying to keep the money coming into coal companies as long as he can, I suppose,” said David Hoekema......read on  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/26/fossil-fuel-extractors-bend-the-world-to-their-will-help-fund-the-journalism-that-exposes-them

Hidden Fossil Fuels: Plastic Production Drives Climate Change. Study shows that plastic production could be nearly one third of the global carbon budget and emits four times more greenhouse gases than the airline industry. NRDC  Renée Sharp Shannon Puebla 23 Apr 2024 A new study by the U.S. federal government found that global plastic production is a major driver of climate change. The study, which was conducted by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, estimates that by 2050 plastic production could account for between 21% to 31% of the global carbon emission budget required to limit global temperature increase to just 1.5 degrees Celsius. Currently, the industry is responsible for four times more greenhouse gas emissions than the airline industry, or about 600 coal-fired power plants.

While this is not the first analysis to highlight the connection between plastics and the climate, the stark statistics should be a wake-up call. Reducing plastic production is critical to combating climate change.  Many people don't realize that 99% of all plastics are made from fossil fuels, and plastics contribute to climate change throughout their life cycle. Greenhouse gas emissions are associated with everything from fossil fuel extraction, to plastic manufacturing, to the disposal of plastic waste. A 2021 analysis by Beyond Plastics found that the U.S. plastics industry will be a bigger contributor to climate change than coal-fired power in the nation by 2030.The fossil fuel industry is counting on a dramatic increase in plastic use since they are facing a world that is moving towards renewable energy and away from oil and gas due to mounting climate change concerns. Plastic has been called the fossil fuel industry's "Plan B" as it looks for ways to maintain profit margins. 

What the DOE’s analysis underscores is that we won’t be able to succeed in our fight to prevent the worst impacts of climate change if we don’t address the enormous contribution of plastics.  It’s time for policymakers to recognize that plastics are just a different form of fossil fuels, and climate mitigation policies must include measures to reduce reliance on plastics, particularly single use plastics and unnecessary plastic packaging. As OECD has noted, while "public policies on climate change mitigation and curbing plastic pollution have mostly developed independently... the two issues are linked.” Plastic is a triple threat.....read on  https://www.nrdc.org/bio/renee-sharp/hidden-fossil-fuels-plastic-production-drives-climate-change

Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says. False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalised. Guardian Damian Carrington 19 June 2025 Rampant climate misinformation is turning the crisis into a catastrophe, according to the authors of a new report. It found climate action was being obstructed and delayed by false and misleading information stemming from fossil fuel companies, rightwing politicians and some nation states. The report, from the International Panel on the Information Environment (Ipie), systematically reviewed 300 studies. The researchers found climate denialism has evolved into campaigns focused on discrediting solutions, such as the false claims that renewable energy caused the recent massive blackout in Spain. Online bots and trolls hugely amplify false narratives, the researchers say, playing a key role in promoting climate lies. The experts also report that political leaders, civil servants and regulatory agencies are increasingly being targeted in order to delay climate action. Climate misinformation – the term used by the report for both deliberate and inadvertent falsehoods – is of increasing concern. Last Thursday, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, called for misinformation and greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry to be criminalised. On Saturday, Brazil, host of the upcoming Cop30 climate summit, will rally nations behind a separate UN initiative to crack down on climate misinformation.

“It is a major problem,” said Dr Klaus Jensen, of the University of Copenhagen, who co-led the Ipie review. “If we don’t have the right information available, how are we going to vote for the right causes and politicians, and how are politicians going to translate the clear evidence into the necessary action? Unfortunately, I think the [bad actors] are still very, very active, and probably have the upper hand now.” Jensen added: “We have about five years to cut emissions in half and until 2050 to go carbon neutral. Without the right information, we’re not going to get there. So the climate crisis being translated into a climate catastrophe is possible, unless we handle the climate information integrity problem.”

Morgera said in her report last week that countries must “defossilise” information systems, after decades of misinformation from the powerful fossil fuel industry. She said states should “criminalise misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry” and “criminalise media and advertising firms for amplifying disinformation and misinformation by fossil fuel companies”. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called in June 2024 for a ban on advertising by fossil fuel companies, calling the firms the “godfathers of climate chaos”. The UN is leading an international effort called the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change. Brazil will call for countries to strengthen measures to fight climate lies at climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany, with the UK, France, Chile, Morocco and others already signed up to the initiative. Audrey Azoulay, the Unesco director general, said: “Climate-related disinformation [is] running rampant on social media.” The Ipie report is a comprehensive assessment of who is producing climate misinformation, how they propagate it, what impact it has and how it can be combated. It concludes: “Misleading information has undermined public trust in climate science and other key social institutions. This crisis of information integrity is intensifying and exacerbating the climate crisis.” The misinformation ranges from industry promoting fossil gas as a “low-carbon fuel” to bizarre conspiracy theories such as that wildfires in southern California this year were planned by officials in order to destroy Intersection pedestrian tunnels.

Among the findings are that the fossil fuel industry has engaged in a “dual deception” of the public, first denying the reality of climate change, obscuring its responsibility and obstructing climate action, and, second, deploying greenwash to portray itself as an environmentally sustainable enterprise. The report says other sectors have also promoted climate misinformation: US electricity companies, animal agriculture, airlines, tourism, and fast food......read on    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/climate-misinformation-turning-crisis-into-catastrophe-ipie-report