Guterres warns companies not to ‘kneecap progress’ by undermining climate measures

This article was written by Frank Jordans and was published in the Toronto Star on June 16, 2023.

The head of the United Nations launched a tirade against fossil fuel companies Thursday, accusing them of betraying future generations and undermining efforts to phase out a product he called “incompatible with human survival.”

Secretary-General António Guterres also dismissed suggestions by some oil executives — including the man tapped to chair this year’s international climate talks in Dubai — that fossil fuel firms can keep up production if they find a way to capture planet-warming carbon emissions.

He warned that this would just make them “more efficient planetwreckers.”

It’s not the first time the UN chief has called out Big Oil over its role in causing global warming, but the blunt attack reflects growing frustration at the industry’s recent profit bonanza despite warnings from scientists that burning fossil fuels will push the world far beyond any safe climate threshold.

“Last year, the oil and gas industry reaped a record $4 trillion (U.S.) windfall in net income,” Guterres said after a meeting with civil society groups. “Yet for every dollar it spends on oil and gas drilling and exploration, only four cents went to clean energy and carbon capture — combined.”

“Trading the future for thirty pieces of silver is immoral,” he said.

Guterres called on the industry to put forward a credible plan for shifting to clean energy “and away from a product incompatible with human survival.”

Investing their massive profits instead in renewable energy would allow the industry “to survive the transition and remain very important and relevant actors in the world economy,” he said.

Fossil fuel companies have lately pushed the idea that they should be allowed to keep pumping oil and gas out of the ground as long as they remove greenhouse gas emissions in the process, a suggestion experts reject as too complicated and costly to deliver the urgent cuts of greenhouse gas needed.

“The problem is not simply fossil fuel emissions,” Guterres said, a nod to recent comments made by Sultan al-Jaber, the United Arab Emirates official who will lead the next UN climate summit. “It’s fossil fuels — period.”

Al-Jaber, who is also the U.A.E.’s minister of industry and chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., has come under fire from environmentalists and western lawmakers for his close ties to the fossil fuel industry. Al-Jaber was chosen by the U.A.E. to lead the COP28 talks and any criticism by the UN chief — albeit veiled — is highly unusual.

In a statement, al-Jaber’s office noted that he has backed ramping up of renewable energy, recently called the phasedown of fossil fuels “inevitable” and urged the industry to up its game when it comes to cutting emissions.

Guterres’s comments Thursday came as negotiators from almost 200 countries wrapped up two weeks of talks in Bonn, Germany, in preparation for COP28.

The UN climate office confirmed Thursday that it will require delegates attending the summit in Dubai to disclose their affiliation in an effort to clamp down on undue influence by fossil fuel companies and others.

Participants will also be asked to provide optional information on their relationship with the government agency or organization that’s nominated them and those declining to do so will be flagged accordingly.

Civil society groups welcomed the decision, which will apply to them too, but said participants should also have to disclose who is funding their attendance.

Guterres echoed their concerns, warning that fossil fuel companies are undermining climate measures and said they must “cease and desist influence-peddling and legal threats designed to kneecap progress.”

“I am thinking particularly of recent attempts to subvert net zero alliances, invoking antitrust legislation,” Guterres said, referring to efforts in some U.S. states aimed at preventing insurance companies from setting environmental standards for the companies they invest in.

Trading the future for thirty pieces of silver is immoral. ANTÓNIO GUTERRES UN SECRETARYGENERAL