Major oil companies have in recent years made splashy climate pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and take on the climate crisis, but a new report suggests those plans do not stand up to scrutiny.
The research and advocacy group Oil Change International examined climate plans from the eight largest US- and European-based international oil and gas producers — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — and found none were compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels — a threshold scientists have long warned could have dire consequences if breached.
The report’s authors used 10 criteria and ranked each aspect of each company’s plan on a spectrum from “fully aligned” to “grossly insufficient” and found all eight companies ranked “grossly insufficient” or “insufficient” on nearly all criteria.
The authors also found that the companies’ current oil and gas extraction plans could lead to more than 2.4C of global temperature rise, which would probably usher in climate devastation. The eight firms alone are on track to use 30% of the world’s remaining global carbon budget to keep global average temperature rise to 1.5C, the study found.
The report, in its fourth annual edition, was endorsed by more than 200 climate groups internationally. Since the first edition of the report in 2020, many oil companies have rolled back climate pledges amid spiking fossil fuel prices.“ The Big Oil Reality Check data illustrates these companies’ dangerous commitment to profit at all cost,” said Tong. It follows a March report from the thinktank Carbon Tracker, which found none of the world’s 25 largest fossil fuel companies’ production and transition plans align with the central goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.