COP oil company emissions will cause 17 million heat deaths

Fossil fuel companies that lobbied COP summits have produced enough oil and gas since the 2015 Paris Agreement to cause 17 million heat deaths, a new Global Witness analysis shows.

A total of 104 oil and gas producing companies sent lobbyists to the three COP summits that preceded the current talks in Baku. Since the Paris Agreement was signed in December 2015, carbon emissions from oil and gas production by these companies amount to 76 billion tonnes, according to Global Witness research.

The top five Western oil companies – Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil and Chevron – all sent lobbyists to the COP talks. Between them, these companies have produced enough oil and gas since the Paris Agreement to cause 3.7 million heat deaths, according to Global Witness findings.

Dominic Eagleton, Senior Fossil Fuel Campaigner at Global Witness, said: “Including oil companies in discussions that should aim to phase out their deadly products creates a life-threatening conflict of interest that governments should to end it by excluding industry from climate policymaking.

“Fossil fuel companies are the main cause of climate change, but despite billions in profits, they don’t pay a dime for the damage they cause. We need to establish a clear rule – if you pollute the climate, you pay to clean it up.”

Global Witness’ analysis is based oncost of carbon mortality model designed by academics from Columbia University. This predicts that there will be 226 excess heat-related deaths worldwide between 2020 and 2100 for every million tonnes of carbon emitted in the year 2020.

Fossil fuel emissions are by far the biggest contributor to the climate crisis, making heat waves more frequent, more intense and longer lasting. Poorer countries that bear the brunt of extreme weather are forced to bear the costs of climate destruction, even though they are the least responsible and least able to pay.

Fossil fuel companies that participated in the previous three COP summits, which currently have no obligation to pay for the climate damage they cause, have made $2.6 trillion in profits from oil and gas production since the signing of the Paris Agreement, according to Global Witness research.

This would cover half of the costs of climate damage in developing countries during this period, which are estimated at $400 billion a year.

At this year’s COP29 summit in Baku, fossil fuel lobbyists received more passes at the event than all delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined, giving the industry a stronger presence than countries on the front lines of climate breakdown.

Global Witness has approached Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil and Chevron for comment on the findings. Shell and TotalEnergies declined the opportunity and the other companies did not respond.

ENDS/

Notes for editors

• Global Witness’ analysis of heat deaths is based on cost of carbon mortality model designed by academics from Columbia University. This predicts that there will be 226 deaths from excess heat globally between 2020 and 2100 for every million tonnes of carbon emitted in 2020. We use a wider range of emissions for the period 2016-2024. The model assumes “business as usual”. ‘ scenario, in which governments successfully implement climate policies that are currently in place. The heat-related death figures do not include other causes of death attributed to human-induced temperature increases, such as infectious diseases, conflict, floods and famine.
• We used data from previous Global Witness investigations showing the number of fossil fuel lobbyists who attended the three previous COP summits and which companies they represented. We identified these companies’ oil and gas production volumes from 2016 to 2024 using Rystad Energy’s UCube database and applied Columbia University’s carbon mortality costing methodology to production volumes.
• We used Rystad Energy’s UCube database to identify the gains made by this cohort of companies since the Paris Agreement. The figure represents the “free cash flow” from the companies’ oil and gas production, after accounting for production costs and taxes.