Oil and gas companies must pay for climate damage, global survey finds

Oil and gas companies profiting from high emissions should bear the most responsibility for paying for the effects of climate change, a new survey has found.

The research was commissioned by Greenpeace International’s Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign and conducted by Opinium Research, a strategic insight agency. 

It polled 8 000 adults in Australia, Argentina, France, Morocco, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States online, using a nationally representative sample based on age, gender and region. 

Asked about who should bear the most responsibility for the effects of climate change, the survey revealed the most popular option in all eight countries was making oil and gas companies pay, with high-emitting countries and global elites ranked second and third. 

“This research shows how taxing the wealthy polluters in chief — companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, Total, Equinor and Eni — has become a mainstream solution among people, cutting across borders and income levels,” said Abdoulaye Diallo, the co-head of Greenpeace International’s Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign, in a statement.

As governments debate how to finance climate action, “they can be confident that making polluters pay is not only fair, but also far more popular and effective than placing the burden on ordinary citizens for a crisis for which they bear little or no responsibility”, Diallo said.

Sixty percent of people in the survey saw a link between profits of the oil and gas industry and rising energy prices.

According to Greenpeace International, imposing a fair climate damages tax on the extraction of fossil fuels by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 

countries, is one example of a tax on big polluters. This could generate $900 billion by 2030, based on a low initial rate of $5 a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), rising by $5 a tonne each year thereafter.

“This would be key for annual climate-related loss and damage costs, estimated to be between $290 to $580 billion by 2030 in low-income countries, as well as for reducing the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis in all countries,” it said.

Opinium’s research found that 73% of respondents were angry about chief executives of oil and gas firms “taking home huge bonuses while their business decisions were making climate change worse”. 

And 71% expressed displeasure about the risk and effect on health from the pollution caused by oil and gas companies, as well as the new oil and gas fields, despite evidence that this was worsening climate change.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents took issue with disinformation on climate change from oil and gas companies to delay climate action, as well as constant lobbying and influence over politicians and lawmakers.

Thirty-four percent agreed that oil and gas companies were not held accountable by governments for the environmental damage they caused, while 33% agreed that these firms continued to contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss.

And 62% of respondents — 66% in South Africa — agreed that inflation and the increased cost of living was the most important issue that faced their country. 

Thirty-two percent cited environmental disasters including drought, fires and storms; wealth inequality (27%); polluting water resources with toxics or plastics (22%); and food security (20%).

“The cost-of-living crisis overshadows environmental issues, but there is still broad concern about climate change,” Opinium said in its report. “The Philippines are the most alarmed, contributed to by high levels of personal experience with the effects of climate change and worry about impact to future generations.”

Respondents in developed nations were less concerned, which is “associated with a perception that it will not affect them individually”. 

The survey found that 80% of respondents were worried about climate change which would affect them and future generations. 

Fifty-eight percent of South Africans polled reported that they were “alarmed” about climate change, as were 73% of respondents from the Philippines. 

The survey found wide gaps between Global North and Global South countries regarding their exposure to the climate crisis. 

Those surveyed in the Global North were twice as likely to have no personal experience with extreme weather events than those in the Global South (43%, 19% respectively).

The United States and Australia were the least concerned about climate change. But they expected that climate change would harm future generations (68% and 75%, respectively)

Meanwhile, the Philippines and South Africa showed high levels of concern about being individually harmed (90% and 83%, respectively). Ninety percent of the sampled South Africans and 94% of respondents from the Philippines expected that climate change would harm future generations. 

South Africans are seeing extreme weather events unfolding “year after year” and are starting to understand how this is affecting them, said Thandile Chinyavanhu, a Stop Drilling Start Paying global campaigner with Greenpeace International.

Chinyavanhu attributed the disparities between Global North and Global South countries to the levels of urbanisation, the adaptive rate in different countries and how resilient they were to extreme weather events. 

She said more robust tax mechanisms must be implemented globally “to ensure that a good amount of that loss and damage fund is directed to the Global South to enable it to be resilient in the face of these extreme events that we’re facing”.

The survey found that financial incentives and disincentives were among the most supported, particularly in developing economies. 

To address the effects of climate change caused by oil and gas companies, South Africa (45%), Philippines (47%) and Argentina (48%) supported governments creating financial incentives for oil and gas companies to shift to renewables.

On the perceptions of oil and gas companies, Opinium said consumers had a “surprisingly” high level of trust in oil and gas companies, despite believing in a link between emissions and climate change and increasing profits and rising energy prices.