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Corporate Accountability
London's Ecological Footprint

Oil has brought misery to the people of the Niger Delta. While it enriches the economies of the developed world, it has impoverished many of the countries from which it is exported.

Oil is a major source of greenhouse gases that cause climate change, threatening the world's poor further by destabilising the ecosystems they depend on.

Oil is a major source of air pollution, responsible for acid rain, respiratory illnesses and cancers.

The production, transportation and processing of oil has polluted many parts of the planet. Tanker spills, refinery emissions, gas flares, oil well blow-outs, all have spilled highly toxic fluids and gases into the atmosphere, across land and into rivers and oceans around the world.

Oil is a source of conflict, corruption and crime.

All of this has to be taken into account when considering the riches and comforts that oil has brought us.

But who has been in receipt of the riches and comforts that oil furnishes?

Those that live in regions from which oil is mined, on the whole, do not enjoy the benefits.

In the Niger Delta, the forests of Ecuador and Colombia, in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, in Angola and Equatorial Guinea, in Aceh and Russia's far east or north west and in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. People living amidst great wealth have received very little for the sacrifices they have been forced to make for the oil industry.

Their leaders, more often than not, are fabulously wealthy as they re-direct their nation's wealth into the off-shore accounts of their family and friends. Their military budgets swollen both by the available revenues but also by the need to protect themselves from those that seek to capture their wealth; whether they be regional or global contenders, political enemies from within their borders, or the people, for so long denied access to what is theirs.

Meanwhile, developing countries with economies not dependent on oil exports register far better economic performance.

People in the oil dependent countries do not necessarily want to stop oil production. They want a fair deal. They want their environment cleaned up and a fair share of the wealth. They want companies and governments to treat them like human beings and not dispensable obstacles to the realisation of oil revenues. In very few cases does this occur.

We need to consider the winners and losers of the oil age. The big oil companies - ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, TotalFinaElf, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips - are the biggest money making machines in history. In 2004, with oil prices soaring, many of them registered the largest profits in history. They distribute their profits to shareholders, predominately in developed countries. They pay the bulk of their taxes in developed countries. They enjoy the political and strategic support of the world's most powerful governments.

Can the oil industry be more democratic and egalitarian? Can it realise benefits to the majority and not the privileged few? Can it operate without polluting? When it makes mistakes can it repair and compensate adequately? The lessons of the past suggest that it can not.

Climate change imposes limits on how much time we can give the oil industry to clean up its act. The need to find sustainable sources of energy that give us a realistic sense of ecological limits is urgent. Climate change will impact the poor the hardest, providing a double-whammy for those impoverished by its production in their midst.

A number of groups are campaigning to reform the oil industry or for the timely transition to a new paradigm of energy production and consumption; one in which the benefits and costs are more evenly distributed and the planet is respected and preserved.

Links

The Carbon Web

Plan B

JumpStart Ford Campaign

Refinery Reform Campaign

Sustainable Energy & Economy Network

Shell Facts

Please also see the climate change and other campaign pages on our coalition member's websites. Click on the 'top' link to see our coalition partners.

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