September, 12 2023, 08:26am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nicole Rodel, Oil Change International – nicole@priceofoil.org (CET)
Valentina Stackl, Oil Change International – valentina@priceofoil.org (ET)
New Research Exposes 5 Global North Countries Responsible for 51% of Planned Oil and Gas Expansion Through 2050
Only 20 countries, led overwhelmingly by the United States, are responsible for nearly 90 percent of the carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution threatened by new oil and gas fields and fracking wells planned between 2023 and 2050. If this oil and gas expansion [1] is allowed to proceed, it would lock in climate chaos and an unlivable future, according to Planet Wreckers, a new report by Oil Change International.
The research is released days ahead of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ Climate Ambition Summit in New York City, where more than 10,000 people will march in protest of inaction against fossil fuels. Guterres has called for countries to show up with commitments to stop oil and gas expansion and plan a phase out of existing production in line with the 1.5°C limit.
If these 20 countries, which the report dubs “Planet Wreckers”, halted their planned new oil and gas extraction, 173 billion tonnes (Gt) of carbon pollution would be kept in the ground. This is equivalent to the lifetime pollution of nearly 1,100 new coal plants, or more than 30 years of annual U.S. carbon emissions. On top of oil and gas extraction from already operating sites worldwide, this amount of new carbon pollution would make it impossible to hold temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Five global north countries with the greatest economic means and moral responsibility to rapidly phase out production are responsible for a majority (51%) of planned expansion from new oil and gas fields through 2050: the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom.
Key Findings:
- Analysis shows just 20 countries are responsible for nearly 90% of carbon dioxide pollution threatened by new oil and gas extraction projects between 2023 and 2050 — with top ‘climate hypocrites’ the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom accounting for a majority.
- If these 20 Planet Wreckers followed the call from UN Secretary General Guterres to stop new oil and gas fields and licensing, the equivalent to the lifetime carbon pollution of 1,100 new coal plants would be kept in the ground
- The United States is Planet Wrecker In Chief, accounting for more than one-third of planned global oil and gas expansion through 2050.
- Oil and gas expansion by the 20 Planet Wrecker countries would make it impossible to hold temperature rise to 1.5°C.
The United States is “Planet Wrecker-In-Chief”, accounting for more than one-third of CO2 pollution from planned global oil and gas expansion through 2050.[2] The United States is already the largest producer of oil and gas in the world and the largest historical climate polluter.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), this year’s host of crucial UN negotiations, is also set to be one of the largest expanders of oil and gas production despite pledging to use its COP presidency to “keep 1.5°C alive”.
Oil and gas expansion from the 20 countries would make it impossible to hold temperature rise to 1.5°C. Even extracting just the fossil fuels from existing sites globally would result in 140% more carbon pollution than the allowed budget for 1.5°C. If these countries proceed with new extraction, committed carbon pollution from fossil fuel production will be 190% over the 1.5°C budget, risking locking in more than a dangerous 2°C of warming, and an unlivable future for all.
Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy lead and report co-author at Oil Change International, said: “It’s simple: when you are in a hole, the first step is to stop digging. The climate crisis is global in nature – but is atrociously unjust. A handful of the world’s richest nations’ are risking our future by willingly ignoring the calls to rapidly phase out fossil fuels. Despite very clear science telling us what is in store beyond 1.5°C, these so-called climate leaders are planning for climate chaos. Continuing to increase fossil fuel production anywhere is not compatible with a liveable future and has been rightly called “moral and economic madness” by UN Secretary General Guterres. All countries must show up to the UN Climate Ambition Summit with plans to stop oil and gas expansion immediately, but these five countries have the additional responsibility to move first and fastest to phase out their production, and pay their fair share to fund a just global energy transition. The world is watching, and those intent on leading us into disaster will be held accountable.”
Julia Levin, Associate Director, National Climate, Environmental Defence Canada said: “Canada has been rightly exposed as one of the worst polluters on the planet, as a result of its plans to increase oil and gas production. It has been a devastating summer for people across Canada, who have lost their lives, their homes and their communities as a result of climate disasters. Yet governments in Canada are throwing fuel on the fire by expanding oil and gas production, while the federal government drags its feet on new rules that would cap and cut emissions from the oil and gas sector. Further delay in reducing oil and gas pollution is inexcusable.”
Tessa Khan, Executive Director at Uplift, said: “We’re often told that the UK is a climate leader, but this confirms that we’re now part of a tiny club of countries that are having an outsized role in driving the climate crisis. We know we cannot keep opening up new oil and gas fields if we want a habitable world, yet that is exactly what this government is doing.
Rishi Sunak needs to stop bowing to the demands of the fossil fuel firms, who continue to rake in obscene profits while millions of us cannot afford to heat our homes.
What’s worse is that we don’t need to be part of this wrecking club. The UK has renewable resources in abundance, enough to provide us with a cheaper, clean supply of energy. Oil and gas companies cannot be allowed to influence the UK’s energy or climate policies any longer.”
James Sherley, Climate Justice Campaigner at Jubilee Australia, said: “Despite the reality of the climate crisis the Australian government continues to facilitate the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. In recent years Australians have been devastated by the most severe bushfires and floods in our history, it is inconceivable that our taxpayer dollars are still propping up the industry causing this destruction. By signing the Glasgow Statement the government can end its support for fossil fuel exports and redirect that integral capital into the clean energy revolution. This is just one step Australia must take if we are to rebuild some credibility on global climate action, especially pertinent considering our bid to host COP31 with our Pacific Islands neighbors.”
Frode Pleym, head of Greenpeace Norway, said: “This report confirms that Norway is on a highway to climate hell. The science could not be more clear: There is no room for a single drop of oil from new fields. Yet, the state is spending billions on exploring for ever more resources, even in the vulnerable arctic.”
Caroline Brouillette, Executive Director of Climate Action Network Canada, said: “From heatwaves to wildfires to floods, Canadians have experienced devastating climate impacts this summer – all of which are linked to fossil fuels. Pollution from Canada’s oil and gas sector has risen unchecked for decades, and the sector is still planning further expansion, actively destroying our chance at a safe and healthy future. Fossil fuel companies won’t clean up their act on their own: Canada needs a strong and ambitious emissions cap to ensure the oil and gas industry finally takes responsibility.”
Helen Mancini, 16 year old Fridays For Future from New York City, said: “The Planet-Wreckers report presents unmistakable evidence of the peril of fossil fuel expansion while reckoning with the world’s historic polluters, namely the United States, and how we must hold them accountable. The activism youth are doing is not radical, it’s a demand for survival that the Planet-Wreckers must heed.”
Lavetanalagi Seru, Regional Coordinator for Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) said: “Australia’s treachery is once again laid bare for all to see. This report cuts through the supposed change in rhetoric on climate by the Albanese Government and exposes Australia for what it truly is: a captive of the fossil fuel industry shackled to its insidious agenda.
It’s unfathomable that the Australian government continues to stoke the flames of the climate crisis, despite the brutal scars of unprecedented bushfires and floods etched into its landscape, and with full knowledge of the profound impacts that the fossil fuel industry inflicts upon First Nations communities and the Pacific.
With the window of opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5°C rapidly closing, a global fossil fuel phase out that is fast, fair and funded must be our paramount priority. Pacific Leaders must strongly insist on Australia to course correct before lending its support to the COP31 bid.”
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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Amazon Won't Display Tariff Costs After Trump Whines to Bezos
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said all companies should be "displaying how much tariffs contribute to the total price of products."
Apr 29, 2025
Amazon said Tuesday that it would not display tariff costs next to products on its website after U.S. President Donald Trump called the e-commerce giant's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, to complain about the reported plan.
Citing an unnamed person familiar with Amazon's supposed plan, Punchbowl Newsreported that "the shopping site will display how much of an item's cost is derived from tariffs—right next to the product's total listed price."
Many Amazon products come from China. While U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed Sunday that "there is a path" to a tariff deal with the Chinese government, Trump has recently caused global economic alarm by hitting the country with a 145% tax and imposing a 10% minimum for other nations.
According toCNN, which spoke with two senior White House officials on Tuesday, Trump's call to Bezos "came shortly after one of the senior officials phoned the president to inform him of the story" from Punchbowl.
"Of course he was pissed," one officials said of Trump. "Why should a multibillion-dollar company pass off costs to consumers?"
Asked about how the call with Bezos went, Trump told reporters: "Great. Jeff Bezos was very nice. He was terrific. He solved the problem very quickly, and he did the right thing, and he's a good guy."
Earlier Tuesday, during a briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Amazon's reported plan "a hostile and political act," and said that "this is another reason why Americans should buy American."
Leavitt also asked why Amazon didn't have such displays during the Biden administration and held up a printed version of a 2021 Reutersreport about the company's "compliance with the Chinese government edict" to stop allowing customer ratings and reviews in China, allegedly prompted by negative feedback left on a collection President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings.
Asked whether Bezos is "still a Trump supporter," Leavitt said that she "will not speak to" the president's relationship with him.
As CNBCdetailed Tuesday:
Less than two hours after the press briefing, an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC that the company was only ever considering listing tariff charges on some products for Amazon Haul, its budget-focused shopping section.
"The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products," the spokesperson said. "This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties."
But in a follow-up statement an hour after that one, the spokesperson clarified that the plan to show tariff surcharges was "never approved" and is "not going to happen."
In response to Bloomberg also reporting on Amazon's claim that tariff displays were never under consideration for the company's main site, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote on social media Tuesday, "Good move."
Before Amazon publicly killed any plans for showing consumers the costs from Trump's import taxes, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber's floor Tuesday that companies should be "displaying how much tariffs contribute to the total price of products."
"I urge more companies, particularly national retailers that compete with Amazon, to adopt this practice. If Amazon has the courage to display why prices are going up because of tariffs, so should all of our other national retailers who compete with them. And I am calling on them to do it now," he said.
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) on Tuesday framed the whole incident as an example of how "Trump has created a government by and for the billionaires," declaring: "If anyone ever doubted that Trump, and Musk, and Bezos, and the billionaires are all [on] one team, just look at what happened at Amazon today. Bezos immediately caved and walked back a plan to tell Americans how much Trump's tariffs are costing them."
Casar also claimed Bezos wants "big tax cuts and sweatheart deals," and pointed to Amazon's Prime Video paying $40 million to license a documentary about the life of First Lady Melania Trump. In addition to the film agreement, Bezos has come under fire for Amazon's $1 million donation to the president's inauguration fund.
As the owner of
The Washington Post, Bezos—the world's second-richest person, after Trump adviser Elon Musk—also faced intense criticism for blocking the newspaper's planned endorsement of the president's 2024 Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, and demanding its opinion page advocate for "personal liberties and free markets."
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Medicare for All, Says Sanders, Would Show American People 'Government Is Listening to Them'
"The goal of the current administration and their billionaire buddies is to pile on endless cuts," said one nurse and union leader. "Even on our hardest days, we won't stop fighting for Medicare for All."
Apr 29, 2025
On Tuesday, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Debbie Dingell of Michigan reintroduced the Medicare for All Act, re-upping the legislative quest to enact a single-payer healthcare system even as the bill faces little chance of advancing in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives or Senate.
Hundreds of nurses, healthcare providers, and workers from across the country joined the lawmakers for a press conference focused on the bill's reintroduction in front of the Capitol on Tuesday.
"We have the radical idea of putting healthcare dollars into healthcare, not into profiteering or bureaucracy," said Sanders during the press conference. "A simple healthcare system, which is what we are talking about, substantially reduces administrative costs, but it would also make life a lot easier, not just for patients, but for nurses" and other healthcare providers, he continued.
"So let us stand together," Sanders told the crowd. "Let us do what the American people want and let us transform this country. And when we pass Medicare for All, it's not only about improving healthcare for all our people—it's doing something else. It's telling the American people that, finally, the American government is listening to them."
Under Medicare for All, the government would pay for all healthcare services, including dental, vision, prescription drugs, and other care.
"It is a travesty when 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and millions more are drowning in medical debt in the richest nation on Earth," said Jayapal in a statement on Tuesday.
In 2020, a study in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet found that a single-payer program like Medicare for All would save Americans more than $450 billion and would likely prevent 68,000 deaths every year. That same year, the Congressional Budget Office found that a single-payer system that resembles Medicare for All would yield some $650 billion in savings in 2030.
Members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation's largest union of registered nurses, were also at the press conference on Tuesday.
In a statement, the group highlighted that the bill comes at a critical time, given GOP-led threats to programs like Medicaid.
"The goal of the current administration and their billionaire buddies is to pile on endless cuts and attacks so that we become too demoralized and overwhelmed to move forward," said Bonnie Castillo, registered nurse and executive director of NNU. "Even on our hardest days, we won't stop fighting for Medicare for All."
Per Sanders' office, the legislation has 104 co-sponsors in the House and 16 in the Senate, which is an increase from the previous Congress.
A poll from Gallup released in 2023 found that 7 in 10 Democrats support a government-run healthcare system. The poll also found that across the political spectrum, 57% of respondents believe the government should ensure all people have healthcare coverage.
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Advocates Warn GOP Just Unveiled 'Most Dangerous Higher Ed Bill in US History'
"This is the boldest attempt we've seen in recent history to segregate higher education along racial and class lines," said the Debt Collective.
Apr 29, 2025
At a markup session held by a U.S. House committee on the Republican Party's recently unveiled higher education reform bill Tuesday, one Democratic lawmaker had a succinct description for the legislation.
"This bill is a dream-killer," said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) of the so-called Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan, which was introduced by Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) as part of an effort to find $330 billion in education programs to offset President Donald Trump's tax plan.
Tasked with helping to make $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans possible, Walberg on Monday proposed changes to the Pell Grant program, which has provided financial aid to more than 80 million low-income students since it began in 1972. The bill would allocate more funding to the program but would also reduce the number of students who are eligible for the grants, changing the definition of a "full-time" student to one enrolled in at least 30 semester hours each academic year—up from 12 hours. Students would be cut off from the financial assistance entirely if they are enrolled less than six hours per semester.
David Baime, senior vice president for government relations for the American Association of Community Colleges, suggested the legislation doesn't account for the realities faced by many students who benefit from Pell Grants.
"These students are almost always working a substantial number of hours each week and often have family responsibilities. Pell Grants help them meet the cost of tuition and required fees," Baime toldInside Higher Ed. "We commend the committee for identifying substantial additional resources to help finance Pell, but it should not come at the cost of undermining the ability of low-income working students to enroll at a community college."
The draft bill would also end subsidized loans, which don't accrue interest when a student is still in college and gives borrowers a six-month grace period after graduation, starting in July 2026. More than 30 million borrowers currently have subsidized loans.
The proposal would also reduce the number of student loan repayment options from those offered by the Biden administration to just two, with borrowers given the option for a fixed monthly amount paid over a certain period of time or an income-based plan.
At the markup session on Tuesday, Bonamici pointed to her own experience of paying for college and law school "through a combination of grants and loans and work study and food stamps," and noted that her Republican colleagues on the committee also "graduated from college."
"And more than half of them have gone on to earn advanced degrees," said the congresswoman. "And yet those same individuals who benefited so much from accessing higher education are supporting a bill that will prevent others from doing so."
“In a time when higher ed is being attacked, this bill is another assault,” @RepBonamici calls out committee leaders for wanting to gut financial aid.
“With this bill, they will be taking that opportunity [of higher ed] away from others. This bill is a dream killer.” pic.twitter.com/UjTYvnOEKv
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
Democrats on the committee also spoke out against provisions that would cap loans a student can take out for graduate programs at $100,000; the Grad PLUS program has allowed students to borrow up to the cost of attendance.
The Parent PLUS program, which has been found to provide crucial help to Black families accessing higher education, would also be restricted.
"Black students, brown students, first-generation college students, first-generation Americans, will not have access to college," said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.).
“We cannot take away access to loans, and not replace it with anything else, not make the system better. We know the outcome here—Black, brown, and poor students will not figure it out. Instead, only elite students from the 1% will continue to access education.”@RepSummerLee🙇 pic.twitter.com/oGbRH154Ed
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
As the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) warned last week, eliminating the Grad PLUS program without also lowering the cost of graduate programs would "subject millions of future borrowers to an unregulated and predatory private student loan market, while doing little to reduce overall student debt and the need to borrow."
Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for SBPC, told The Hill that the draft bill is "an attack on students and working families with student loan debt."
"We've seen an array of really problematic proposals that are on the table for congressional Republicans," Canchola Bañez said. "Many of these would cause massive spikes for families with monthly student loan payments."
With the proposal, which Republicans hope to pass through reconciliation with a simple majority, the party would be "restructuring higher education for the worse," said the Debt Collective.
"It's the most dangerous higher ed bill in U.S. history," said the student loan borrowers union. "It strips the Department of Education of virtually every authority to cancel student debt. Eliminates every repayment program. Abolishes subsidized loans."
"This is the boldest attempt we've seen in recent history to segregate higher education along racial and class lines," the group added. "We have to push back."
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