Antonio Guterres, who happens to be the UN Secretary General, condemned the major fossil fuel players on January 18 for ignoring the climate science and accusing the oil and gas sector of looking to expand production despite fully knowing that their business model isn’t in sync with human survival.
Guterres said that some big oil companies have peddled the big lie, and just like in the tobacco sector, those who are responsible must be held accountable.
His comments were in response to recent research that showed how Exxon Mobil precisely forecast global warming in the 1970s, only to contradict their own research. The study, which was published in the journal Science, stated that Exxon’s projections of a worldwide temperature rise were more accurate than even those of NASA scientists, although the oil major has denied the accusations. As per Guterres, every week comes with climate horror account that warns to commit to global temperature limit to 1.5 Degrees Celcius. This temperature threshold has been an aspirational target ever since the 2015 Paris agreement took place.
This is a threshold at which even small changes can mean dramatic shifts across the earth’s life support system. He said that if there was no action taken, one would witness a surge of 2.8 Degrees Celsius, and the consequences were going to be devastating, as several parts of the earth would become inhabitable. Guterres added that the science has been clear about it for decades and that he is not just referring to UN scientists but fossil fuel scientists as well. Fossil fuel producers according to him are in the race to expand production despite knowing the fact that the business model happens to be inconsistent. It is well to be noted that leading scientists from the world last year in 2022 warned that the thrust to keep the global temperature under the 1.5 Degrees Celcius had reached now or never situation.