Post-COP28 Conversations: Fossil Fuel Companies Committing Crimes Against Humanity
When millions of lives lost annually from climate crisis is instigated by constant fossil fuel industry extraction, isn't that a form of organized and deadly crime we need to talk about and act on?
Charles Ellison | Publisher’s Riff
Among the many bizarre and infuriating aspects of the broader climate crisis discourse is how the oil and gas industry is able to, largely, evade official blame for causing climate crisis. We see this in general climate coverage: journalists report on “climate change” happening, but there is no acknowledgement of what made that happen. This past year, news headlines oozed with worries over heat waves, but no finger-pointing at the reason behind the heat waves. Wildfires blazed so badly across parts of Canada and spewed poisonous red haze all across North America that public discussion, for lack of a better phrasing, simply called them “Canadian wildfires” - but, that weirdly left blame on the Canadians. Yet, the oil and gas sector that lit the fires in the first place was never taken to the court of public mood during that moment or any of these moments.
Climate crisis impacts themselves are very clear. But how exactly do we establish the role of the oil companies in creating the crisis? How exactly do we establish the role of the fossil fuel extraction industry as the ultimate global villain creating a tsnuami of apocalyptic scenarios? How can we shape policy able to stop the worst of the crisis if we’re not even allowed to, collectively, point blame at the culprit?
Perhaps that’s the only good thing that came out this recent 28th “Conference of the Parties” climate convening otherwise known as “COP28” (someone is really going to have to come up with a new acronym for this, for real): It was the inadvertent acknowledgement, on their own turf in Dubai, of the existence of the “petrostate” and its role as the creator of the climate crisis. Yes, it was tragic that there wasn’t a direct call for a total “phase out” of fossil fuels and, instead, a “transition away” as The Guardian reports …
The failure of Cop28 to call for a phase-out of fossil fuels is “devastating” and “dangerous” given the urgent need for action to tackle the climate crisis, scientists have said.
One called it a “tragedy for the planet and our future” while another said it was the “dream outcome” for the fossil fuel industry.
The UN climate summit ended on Wednesday with a compromise deal that called for a “transition away” from fossil fuels. The stronger term “phase-out” had been backed by 130 of the 198 countries negotiating in Dubai but was blocked by petrostates including Saudi Arabia.
But what we did see, for the first time, was some form of general or official consensus around the scientific fact that fossil fuels caused climate crisis.
The problem here is where we head next. It will be important not to pat the oil and gas industry on the back for “job well done” as if they heavy lifted on the self-awareness part. They’ve still half destroyed the planet and there is still much work to do.
One needed path is to dramatically reframe the climate conversation we’re having. For too long, we’ve been watching climate crisis disasters unfold and simply responding to them in fear of what that future holds. Yet, stopping the worst elements of climate disaster could mean that we finally start pointing fingers at fossil fuel corporations as the global villains they are. The resulting anger from placing blame on the oil and gas sector could be used as an effective tool; that could, potentially, result in global constituenties and consumers placing greater pressure on policymakers and industries, as a recent survey found …
Among those reporting anger, directing it towards human qualities or actions was consistently and positively related to individual behavior, policy support, and activism while referring to responsible agents was not related to either. Overall, we find that both the strength and content of climate anger are relevant for climate change engagement.
It’s rather astounding that we haven’t pushed the limits of that anger, yet. Or is it really surprising given the scant attention media and entertainment industries overall give: less that 3 percent of TV and film acknowledged the climate crisis, and just 0.56 percent referenced the words “climate change” in their programming between 2016 - 2020, according to analysis from the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center Media Impact Project in conjunction with non-profit Good Energy …
In total, we identified 1,772 mentions of climate change keywords, which appeared in 1,046 TV and film scripts.
That means only 2.8% of analyzed scripts included any climate change keywords, and 0.6% of scripted TV and films mentioned the specific term “climate change.”
For context, the word “dog” was mentioned almost 13 times as frequently as all 36 climate keywords combined in the same time frame.
That’s not by accident when, as a freshly released report by publications Drilled and De-Smog find that “… [a]s the business model for media has faltered, the fossil fuel industry has increasingly weaponized weaknesses to its benefit.” Just as fossil fuel lobbyists controlled the narrative and negotiations as the COP28, ad dollars eventually hold enormous sway over reporting in newsrooms …
Still: what’s stopping us from finally getting to that point where the fossil fuel companies and their executives are the villains killing us, our families and the planet we rely on for life-support? We’re able to have a recent months long conversation around “genocide” and crimes against humanity as current Israel-Hamas conflict rages on. Yet, why is it difficult for the global public to initiate a conversation about the crimes against humanity committed by fossil fuel extraction and unabated toxic carbon emissions that devastate public health and safety everywhere? As a Monash University study, the largest examination of climate mortality rates ever, discovered in 2021, there are nearly 5 million deaths from abnormal climate crisis-driven temperatures per year. This looked at mortality data between years 2000 - 2019 …
A 2012 Climate Vulnerability Monitor study had already discovered, at that time, “… an estimated 400,000 people die each year due to hunger and diseases related to climate change. By 2030, the death toll is expected to rise to 700,000 per year, and cost the global economy 2.5 percent of GDP annually.”
According to recent data released by the Vulnerable 20 group …
Unabated climate change will cause 3.4 million deaths per year by the end of the Century, new data presented to COP27 today shows. Health-related deaths of the over-65s will increase by 1,540 percent, and in India alone there will be 1 million additional heat-related deaths by 2090, if no action to limit warming is taken, the data shows.
The data is part of the ‘Health Data Explorer’, published today and commissioned by the Lancet Countdown and the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 68 developing countries highly vulnerable to climate heating.
The Health Data Explorer outlines the catastrophic health consequences of climate inaction, and the major health gains that would arise from taking urgent measures to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
If the world managed to meet the 1.5°C target, 91 percent of the projected 3.4 million deaths would be avoided. If climate heating overshoots 1.5 °C but is limited to 2°C, the number of deaths avoided drops to 50% — underscoring how crucial it is to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Considering the level of destruction and fatality caused by ceaseless fossil fuel extraction and use, doesn’t this amount to a global crime worth a trial in the International Criminal Court? When do we start having that conversation? When do we start filing those complaints? Why weren’t petrostate executives served at COP28?