'Biggest compliment yet': Greta Thunberg welcomes oil
chief's 'greatest threat' label
Activists say comments by Opec head prove world opinion is
turning against fossil fuels
Jonathan Watts
@jonathanwatts
Fri 5 Jul 2019 16.13 BST Last modified on Fri 5 Jul 2019
17.55 BST
Greta Thunberg and other climate activists have said it is a
badge of honour that the head of the world’s most powerful oil cartel believes
their campaign may be the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry.
The criticism of striking students by the trillion-dollar
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) highlights the growing
reputational concerns of oil companies as public protests intensify along with
extreme weather.
Mohammed Barkindo, the secretary general of Opec, said there
was a growing mass mobilisation of world opinion against oil, which was
“beginning to … dictate policies and corporate decisions, including investment
in the industry”.
He said the pressure was also being felt within the families
of Opec officials because their own children “are asking us about their future
because … they see their peers on the streets campaigning against this
industry”.
Although he accused the campaigners of misleading people
with unscientific arguments, the comments were welcomed by student and
divestment campaigners as a sign the oil industry is worried it may be losing
the battle for public opinion.
“Thank you! Our biggest compliment yet!” tweeted Thunberg,
the 16-year-old Swedish initiator of the school student strike movement, which
continues every Friday.
“Brilliant! Proof that we are having an impact and be sure
that we will not stop,” said Holly Gillibrand, who was among the first students
in the UK to join the global climate strikes.
Opec – which is made up of 14 countries with 80% of the
world’s proven oil reserves – is planning to expand production, which is
undermining efforts to slow global heating. The backlash is not just from
students, Extinction Rebellion activists and climate scientists.
Insurance companies – which have the most to lose from
storms, floods, fires and other extreme weather – are increasingly pulling
investment from fossil fuel assets. The governor of the Bank of England has
warned of growing climate risks to the financial sector.
Earlier this week, the London Stock Exchange reclassified
oil and gas companies under a non-renewable energy category that effectively
puts them on the wrong side of climate crisis.
Parliaments in three countries – the UK, Canada, France –
have declared a climate emergency, as have dozens of municipalities. They
include most recently a first major US city, New York, which has previously
filed a lawsuit against the five biggest private oil companies.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), a group of wealthy countries, has also taken a more strident tone in
calling for government to put a higher price on oil, gas and coal, to end
subsidies and to rethink fossil fuel investment.
“Our policies have to be made with our children’s future in
mind … short-term decision-making can lock countries into expensive mistakes in
financing and developing infrastructure … that will be neither necessary nor
profitable in a low-emissions world, they will be stranded assets,” said the
OECD secretary general Angel Gurría.
Scientists are also backing a phaseout of fossil fuels as
the signs of climate disruption grow more evident.
In the past two weeks, temperature records have been broken
in France, Alaska and Cuba; there have been wildfires in Germany, Spain, Sweden
and Anchorage; Chennai is among more than a dozen Indian cities running out of
water; Russia is experiencing historic floods; Mexico experienced freak
hailstorm that left Guadalajara streets more than a metre deep in ice; while
the Chinese meteorological agency said records had been broken at 40 weather
stations.
While Opec continues to insist oil is not responsible for
climate chaos, campaigners feel they are finally winning the argument.
Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, which has led a
series of divestment and anti-pipeline campaigns in recent decades, said the
fossil fuel companies were finally losing their social licence.
“By this point, most people realise that the oil companies
lied for decades about global warming – they are this generation’s version of
the tobacco companies. And it’s clearly affecting their ability to raise
capital, to recruit employees and so on. People set out to cost them their
social licence, and it’s working. Whether it’s working fast enough – that’s
another question.”
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