Tzeporah Berman Profile picture
International Program Director https://t.co/nWndXy6h62, Chair of Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty https://t.co/uWpbau2jsc on 🦋 as https://t.co/1MSjcxOnzw

Oct 1, 2020, 9 tweets

FOI docs reveal UK held private talks Oil & Gas companies to plan Glasgow #Cop26. So...oil, gas & coal are 80% of climate problem, these co's still planning expanding production. But sure lets plan climate negotiations with them?! THREAD/ theguardian.com/environment/20…

When the world was negotiating the Montreal Protocol did we invite the chemical companies to design how we would ban their product? How about asbestos? Did the polluters help the world create the plan to stop killing people with that product? 2/

To be clear, I am guilty of going down this road. Because I truly believe there are good people everywhere and we need to understand the barriers to change. I spent four years meeting with the top execs of some of largest oil companies. here are some of the things I learned:3/

yes there are good people in the fossil fuel industry. No they won't support more than incremental climate policy because their job is to make their companies work, to make a profit & an oil company does not easily transform into a renewable energy company. 4/

The fact is continued expansion is critical to their making money. So UK is asking them to help design discussions to wind down their industry? We know they are on track to produce 120% more fossil fuels than the world can safely burn productiongap.org 5/

And that every country and every company likes to argue that their expansion "fits" when in fact we need emissions and production decline from every country and every industry now. ipcc.ch/sr15/

If you are wondering about Big oil's climate plans read this report. 6/ priceofoil.org/2020/09/23/big…

After over a decade trying to understand climate negotiations & impact of oil it is clear to me that we are in mess in large part because of the denial & lobbying of Oil & Gas companies. So successful that Paris Accord doesn't even include words, oil, gas, coal or fossil fuels.

So yes CCS etc will be necessary to achieve net zero BUT oil companies are using the promise of this technology as a justification for expansion and that threatens us all

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