Thread by @patrickgaley

*Rubs hands together* THREAD nytimes.com/2020/01/09/opi…

As the author states, the Climate Leadership Council has among its founding members some of history's biggest polluters

According to Carbon Majors, which measures each company's contribution to carbon pollution, founding members of the Climate Leadership Council are responsible for more than 8 percent of all emissions since 1988

*Spits out tea*

Let's unpack that shall we?

In the order mentioned in the article, BP comes first.

BP's upstream oil and gas activity will have increased 5 percent annually between 2016-2021

It is spending $71bn this decade on upstream oil and gas projects
ogj.com/general-intere…

ConocoPhillips plans $7bn annual capex to 2020. It's worth noting at this point that *all* upstream oil and gas activity is incompatible with the 1.5C warming target mentioned in the Paris accord #climateemergency

ExxonMobil plans to spend a whopping $167bn on upstream oil and gas this decade (at this point I'll remind you the IPCC says emissions from oil must decline 37% and gas 25% by 2030 to reach 1.5C) news.exxonmobil.com/press-release/…

Shell plans $54bn upstream capex in the next five years

Its green investment has totalled less than $2bn in the last five years (1/3rd of its own stated target)
globaldata.com/shell-leads-gl…

And Total has $81bn of upstream capex in the pipeline this decade

These companies have also spent $1bn on lobbying and advertising since Paris on initiatives that are "overwhelmingly in conflict" with the agreement's goals, according to expert analysis phys.org/news/2019-03-e…

This is demonstrably true - oil majors have the cash and the expertise to green the economy. They're just... not

In fact, oil and gas firms must *cut* output by an average of 35 percent in order to keep temperature rises in line with the "well below" 2C outlined in Paris

Instead they're all expanding ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/energ…

This is outright scaremongering, straight from the playbook of some of history's worst tyrants. A rapid transition away from hydrocarbons is not only possible, its been done theguardian.com/business/2019/…

Also, solar PV and wind are now cheaper than all hydrocarbons forbes.com/sites/energyin…

The idea that a transition from oil and gas would lead to price spikes is based on the assumption of business as usual

The economy has changed. The economics of green beats that of brown

We could also I dunno spend some of the $5tn we currently do on keeping hydrocarbons economically viable on renewables, saving money and millions of lives in the process? Just spit-balling here theguardian.com/environment/cl…

*Chef's kiss* sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

I think this bears repeating, what's known as a win-win-win:

"Eliminating subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55%, while raising revenue of 4%, and social welfare by 2.2%, of global GDP"

So yeah. Oil and gas companies have a role to play. They're just not doing it, have shown no evidence throughout history of having done it, have earned zero benefit of the doubt that they will do it, spend billions on making the problem worse and waste energy on narrative capture

For the avoidance of doubt, here's what the IPCC says needs to happen to hydrocarbons in the next decade to safely and reliably limit temperature rises to 1.5C

This is pretty amazing, from the IMF

- #Fossilfuels subsidies contributed 21% to global GHG emissions
- Caused 55% of global air pollution deaths
- Cost 4% of global GDP

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

I hear from oil company employees that the world can't afford to meet increasing demand with renewables

Well here's $5 trillion a year for you. Will that maybe grease the wheels a little? #ClimateEmergency

Fossil fuel giants continue to spend 100s of billions on upstream activity in defiance of science, citizens and their own investors

They then lock the world in to hydrocarbons for decades that are only going concerns due to the dollars and deaths of taxpayers worldwide

So yeah. Energy giants do have a role to play in stopping climate change. They just aren't. They've spent decades actively undermining climate action, billions on ruinous drilling, millions of man hours on lobbying and undermining policy. Literally everything to ruin the planet