Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Oil companies are gambling the climate on a future that hasn’t yet been invented

Oil companies are gambling the climate on a future that hasn’t yet been invented

How seriously should we take the pledges of oil and gas giants such as BP and Shell to reach net-zero emissions by 2050? Such promises are important not only for the companies' public perception, but for the confidence of their largest investors, such as pension funds.

A new report from Oxfam, that was published on 3 August, has cast serious doubts on the feasibility of the companies methods.

Examining the pledges of four major energy companies – BP, Shell, TotalEnergies and Eni – the paper argues that each of their strategies to reach net zero is dangerously over-reliant on carbon offsets. Instead of making fundamental changes to their business models and reducing their own emissions, they depend on planting huge numbers of trees to absorb and store the CO2 which is the main driver of anthropogenic climate change.

The report says this simply won’t work. There isn’t enough land on Earth for the offsets to be feasible: “it is mathematically impossible to plant enough trees to meet the combined net zero targets announced by governments and corporations”. This issue is compounded by the fact that using vast amounts of land for trees would create higher levels of poverty and hunger in low-income countries, because it would limit the land that could be used for agriculture.

All four energy companies have responded to the report, acknowledging its concerns but pointing out that their future plans do not exclusively involve carbon offsets. Instead, their absolute emissions can be reduced, they say, by shifting to renewable energies, using low-carbon fuels, and improving operational efficiency. Carbon capture technology also promises a way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere without using large swathes of land.

But Aditi Sen, the climate policy lead at Oxfam and co-author of the report, says net-zero plans must be “anchored in science-based targets”, and it is not clear how absolute emissions will be reduced by technologies that have yet to be deployed or developed. Companies' own reports on sustainability are characterised, she says, by “a lot of data gaps... a lot of assumptions... a lot of people that are banking on technologies that are still not there”.

Although there are promising carbon capture alternatives to the traditional methods, these have a long way to go. Simon Nicholson, co-director of the Institute of Carbon Removal Law and Policy, says that “companies investing today in technological carbon removal are doing us all a great service by potentially speeding up research and development activities. But investments today in research and development shouldn't count towards net-zero goals tomorrow, because the dreams of carbon removal may never come to pass.”

Worse still is the fact that the report focuses only on companies which do have a plan. According to Sen, they have all “taken some steps in recognition of the urgency of climate change”, while most others “have actually not made any climate plans”.

As noted in the report itself, “Some of the biggest players in the sector, from state-owned Saudi Aramco to ExxonMobil and Chevron, have so far declined to set any targets, effectively burying their heads in the sand, and abdicating their climate responsibility.”

Sen says that some companies also continue to “spread disinformation” about the climate crisis and their response to it.

Part of the problem is the idea of net zero itself, which Sen calls an “amorphous term” which is applied loosely and allows major companies to get away with “business as usual”. Robust government intervention is, she says, the “critical lever for getting these companies to transform at a much more rapid pace”. Without it, there will soon be no business to do at all.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×