We confront Big Oil & Gas companies through advocacy campaigns, incisive research, and communication with the public that cuts through industry disinformation.
The fossil fuel industry has done more to cause the climate crisis than any other industry. They continue to search for more oil, gas, and coal – none of which can be burned for a livable planet. Meanwhile, Big Oil and Gas companies are on a public relations campaign to convince investors, regulators, and the public that they deserve continued support as “part of the solution” in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. To have a future, Big Oil and Gas must have no future.
The Global Industry Team challenges Big Oil and Gas companies’ narratives and provides resources and analysis to decision-makers, allied organizations, and the media to support a full, fast, fair, and funded phaseout of all fossil fuels. Our work shifts perception of the legitimacy of the fossil fuel industry among decision-makers and those who influence them. We weaken the industry’s influence in decision making spaces and create room for climate action.
We proactively disrupt and rapidly respond to counter fossil fuel company disinformation around key oil and gas company moments, including their profit announcements, annual general meetings, and other industry events. Our work supports decision-makers to have counterpoints when they receive companies’ self-serving communications, and assists them to take science-backed policy approaches. We provide rapid response assessments of new oil company “climate” plans as they are released, and annually via our flagship Big Oil Reality Check report. These analyses cut through rhetoric and give partners, investors, political leaders, and journalists reality checks about the companies’ level of ambition.
Big Oil and Gas companies know fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous – and that their business is dying – so they spend billions on smoke and mirrors like “carbon capture”, “blue hydrogen”, “certified natural gas”, “ammonia co-firing”, and more to try to fool us into believing they have solutions for a livable planet when, in reality, they are trying to suck every last ounce of profit out of their business. Our campaigns, research, and public communication exposes these scams that lead to climate chaos, and in doing so removes the shields the fossil fuel industry hides behind in an effort to continue polluting. We simultaneously push for a full, fast, fair, and funded phaseout of all fossil fuels, including within widely used analyses for the future of global energy, such as the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook.
Zero major international oil companies align with the United Nations’ Paris Agreement to limit global warming
Governments around the world are dangerously betting on “carbon capture”: a technology that’s failed for 50 years
Over half of fossil fuels in active fields and mines must stay underground to limit global warming to 1.5ºC – the United Nations’ Paris Agreement target to avoid some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis
The way out of climate chaos is a managed and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels. Governments must stop all new oil and gas, then phase out existing fossil fuel production and use – in a way that is fast, fair, and full – alongside accelerating a just transition towards renewable energy. Oil & gas companies knew about climate change starting in the 1950s, lied to us about it, and have knowingly blocked, delayed, and undermined efforts to act since then. Neither the companies nor the market will manage this transition, so we must weaken the industry’s influence in decision making spaces to create room for climate action. To phase out fossil fuels, governments will need to step in to regulate, break up, in some cases nationalize, and ultimately shut down the companies that have done the most to cause the climate crisis.
One of the shields Big Oil and Gas hides behind are energy scenarios – predictions of the future of energy – that sometimes describe oil and gas continuing for decades to come. Fossil fuel companies use these problematic scenarios to make the case that their business models can continue. By offering research and analysis about how a fossil fuel phaseout is possible, and pressuring for more climate friendly scenarios to become the norm, OCI removes one of the key defenses Big Oil and Gas relies on to continue profiting from climate chaos.
OCI collaboratively led a multi-year campaign to fix one of the most widely used energy scenarios. The campaign brought together climate advocates, investors, businesses, scientists, and diplomats to push the International Energy Agency (IEA) to align its influential World Energy Outlook (WEO) with the full ambition of the United Nations’ Paris Agreement to limit global warming. In 2021, the campaign won when the IEA released its first ever fully fledged energy scenario aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (ºC). The biggest breakthrough for our work, repeated in news headlines across the world, was the IEA’s conclusion that, “There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net zero pathway,” and, therefore, “there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway.” Since 2016, OCI has been making the case that the Paris Agreement requires an end to the expansion of fossil fuel extraction. Now the world’s most influential energy modeling agency — used the world over to guide investment decisions — backs up this conclusion.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has a 50 year history of failing to live up to promises, has major technical challenges and safety risks, and primarily serves to extract more oil & gas. CCS is often presented as a new technology to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by trapping CO2 from a smokestack or directly from the air and then injecting it into the ground for storage. In fact, CCS was first commercialized in the 1970s to enhance oil production, and increasing oil production remains its primary use.
The story of CCS as a method to reduce CO2 emissions is one of over-promising and under-delivering. Analysis after analysis has concluded that CCS is not a climate solution. In September 2023, the International Energy Agency noted that: “The history of CCUS has largely been one of ‘underperformance’ and ‘unmet expectations.’” Yet Big Oil consistently tells us that CCS is central to the fight against climate change. Chevron, for example, says that CCS will make a “lower carbon future possible.” Meanwhile, CCS infrastructure disproportionately impacts communities and regions that fossil fuel companies have already deliberately sacrificed to toxic pollution and climate chaos. As governments prepare to spend up to $200 billion of additional public money on CCS it has to be clear: CCS is a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry, not people and planet.
“Certified,” “responsibly sourced,” “differentiated”, or “clean” gas is just that: gas. Companies claim to monitor pollution during production and transport, but our research, in partnership with Earthworks, Gas Leaks, and Climate Nexus, shows they miss the majority of pollution events. Some companies claim to “monitor” themselves, while others hire private companies, such as Project Canary, MiQ, or Equitable Origin to monitor.
For years, the oil and gas industry has engaged in a propaganda campaign selling gas as “natural,” despite knowing the dangers gas poses to public health and the environment. The full climate impact of gas may be just as bad as coal, thanks to leaking methane – the climate super pollutant responsible for up to nearly half of global warming. The industry would like us to believe it’s working to clean up these leaks and, by doing so, can escape the reality that the only way to ensure a safe, sustainable future is a full, fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout.
The Big Oil Reality Check report finds that the climate pledges and plans of 8 international oil and gas companies fail to align with international agreements to phase out fossil fuels and to limit global temperature rise to 1.5ºC.
This briefing assesses Shell’s fossil fuel extraction plans in light of Shell's appeal of a Dutch court verdict requiring the company to take responsibility for its climate pollution. Our analysis shows that Shell continues to plan for levels of oil and gas production and investment that undermine the world’s chances of curtailing climate disaster.
Governments have spent over $20 billion – and have approved up to $200 billion more – of public money on carbon capture and storage (CCS), providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry. Almost 80% of operating carbon capture capacity globally sends captured CO2 to produce more oil via Enhanced Oil Recovery, while many of the world's largest CCS projects overpromise and underdeliver.
Big Oil and Gas companies know fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous – and that their business is dying – so they spend billions on smoke and mirrors. Sign up to our email list and receive the latest information about our work disrupting the fossil fuel industry's disinformation.
