Oil Change International has released its Big Oil Reality Check report in collaboration with over 200 organisations worldwide.
It outlines that fossil fuel companies’ climate pledges and plans are “dangerously inadequate” and put the world on a path to “climate chaos” and “widespread harm to communities.”
The report assesses the climate pledges and plans of eight international oil and gas companies – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Eni, Equinor, and ConocoPhillips – against ten criteria representing the “bare minimum” for aligning with the Paris Agreement.
According to the research, every company is “Grossly Insufficient” (the lowest rating) or “Insufficient” on a majority of criteria.
Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil specifically were found to be “Grossly Insufficient” on all criteria.
Further, combined, the eight companies’ current oil and gas extraction plans are consistent with more than 2.4°C of global temperature rise and are also on track to use 30 per cent of the remaining carbon budget to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Indeed, of the eight analysed companies, six have explicit goals to increase oil and gas production. However, even those without such plans are advancing new fossil fuel projects and selling polluting assets rather than shutting them down.
Moreover, none of the companies have set comprehensive targets to ensure their total emissions decline “rapidly and consistently,” starting now. All of the companies also intend to rely on carbon capture and storage (CCS), offsets, and/or other methods that delay and distract from ending fossil fuels.
In addition to this, all of these big oil and gas companies fail to meet the basic criteria for just transition plans for workers and communities where they operate and the basic criteria for upholding human rights.
Read the full report here.