Oil and gas companies, in Brazil and abroad, are ending the season for releasing their second quarter balance sheets with exorbitant profits. With the price of oil soaring due to attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran, oil companies are making profits like never before. Its shareholders celebrate. The population already pays the bill for the subsidies that governments around the world grant to contain rising energy prices.
Protest exposes contrast between oil company profits and costs of the climate crisis
Oil and gas companies, in Brazil and abroad, are ending the season for releasing their second quarter balance sheets with exorbitant profits. With the price of oil soaring due to attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran, oil...
The population already pays the bill for the subsidies that governments around the world grant to contain rising energy prices. Therefore, civil society organizations carried out on Wednesday (12/8), at Praia de Botafogo, in Rio de Janeiro, an action to draw attention to the negative side of this account: the economic, social and climate losses that fall on...
- Called the “People's Press Conference”, the action took place in front of the Eneva and PRIO headquarters and brought together representatives of civil society and affected communities.
- With a pulpit, flags, posters and advertising pieces alluding to the main companies in the sector, the participants presented a counterpoint to the financial statements released by the oil...
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Therefore, civil society organizations carried out on Wednesday (12/8), at Praia de Botafogo, in Rio de Janeiro, an action to draw attention to the negative side of this account: the economic, social and climate losses that fall on people.
Called the “People's Press Conference”, the action took place in front of the Eneva and PRIO headquarters and brought together representatives of civil society and affected communities. With a pulpit, flags, posters and advertising pieces alluding to the main companies in the sector, the participants presented a counterpoint to the financial statements released by the oil companies in recent weeks.
The central message of the mobilization is that, while Eneva, PRIO and Petrobras – alongside the major international oil companies – make billions of profits from the exploration of fossil fuels, the costs of this activity are transferred to society, whether through the impacts of the climate crisis, increasingly intense extreme events or their effects on the economy and the cost of living.
While financial and operational results benefit companies and their shareholders, the impacts of extreme weather events affect cities and communities across the country. Climate catastrophes caused more than R$550 billion in direct losses in Brazil in the last decade, according to a survey by the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM). The 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul alone left 185 people dead, affected 2.4 million people and caused losses estimated at R$88.9 billion.
"The oil companies make billions in profit from an absurd war, and we are the ones who pay the bill in terms of climate, electricity and food. They spend millions on advertising to pretend they care, but the truth is simple: the climate crisis has sponsors, and this Super El Niño has partners. It's these fossil fuel companies", said João Cerqueira, director of 350.org Brasil.
For protest organizers, the sector's billion-dollar balance sheets contrast with the growing costs of the climate emergency and reinforce the need to accelerate a fair energy transition, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and hold the sector responsible for the impacts associated with the climate crisis.
“Petrobras cannot continue treating the climate crisis as a problem for the future while celebrating exceptional profits in the present”, reinforces Carolina Marçal, Project Coordinator at ClimaInfo. "The company's financial results show that it has the resources and capacity to lead a fair energy transition. But this requires changing the priority: instead of investing more and more in expanding the oil frontier, it needs to use its economic strength to prepare Brazil for a future beyond fossil fuels."