Mmmmmm how about the nations and companies who profited the most off of it?
Yes, we are looking at you, BP.
On the other hand, if countries like UK didn’t have the consumption demand to buy these resources there’d be less environmental damage because of less extraction.
I’m norwegian and I support this message. We grew our riches by extracting luxurious poison from the earth, intoxicating the world. It’s time for rehab
I have a feeling nations like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and America won’t warmly embrace a British exPM’s idea for a tax on one of their greatest resources to subsidize foreign nations. Especially when it’s framed as their reparations for harming the world.
The. British are also silent when it comes to paying reparations for their own misdeeds overseas, which unfortunately strips this statement of credibility.
I found this quote from him pretty rich because of that:
“These producer states have done literally nothing to earn this unprecedented windfall. It represents one of the biggest ever transfers of wealth from poor to rich nations.”
Colonialist hubris at its most egregious. I bet he thinks England “earned” its colonies too.
“Dear kettle, why are you so black?”
-Yours truly, the pot
We complain about the countries that extract the oil and the countries that burn it to make products, but ignore the fact that they do it for us…
You won’t ever see politicians telling individual people to stop buying so much crap though, because that’s their right and it would hurt the economy…
They’ve spent millions to keep us dependent on oil and killed innovative projects, they should pay a tax
deleted by creator
Lets look at the Big Oil companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajor:
- ExxonMobil formerly Standard Oil Company of New Jersey
- Shell plc formerly Royal Dutch Shell plc
- TotalEnergies formerly Compagnie française des pétroles
- British Petroleum
- Chevron formerly Standard Oil Company of California
- Marathon Petroleum formerly The Ohio Oil Company
- Phillips 66 founded in Oklahoma now HQs in Houston Texas
- Valero , named after Mission San Antonio de Valero aka Alamo Texas
- Eni - Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi founded and owned by a third by the Italian state
- ConocoPhillips founded in Utah, HQs now in Houston Texas
Which of these companies is Arabian, Persian, African or South American?
All i can see is US Americans and Europeans, predominantly Englishmen and their descendents.
They’re just listing western firms which aren’t controlled by governments/royalty
- Aramco
- ADNOC
- Kuwait National Peroleum Company
Are all big and what he’s talking about
The use of the term in the popular media often excludes the national producers and OPEC oil companies who have a much greater global role in setting prices than the supermajors.
But yes, the USA does produce more oil than Saudi Arabia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
The biggest oil producers in 2019 were:
- Saudi Aramco(Saudi Arabia)
- Rosneft(Russia)
- KPC(Kuwait)
- NIOC(Iran)
- CNPC(China)
- ExxonMobil(USA)
- Petrobras(Brazil)
- ADNOC(UAE)
- Cehvron(USA)
- Pemex(Mexico)
https://www.offshore-technology.com/features/companies-by-oil-production/?cf-view
So one European with Rosneft and two US American with ExxonMobil and Chevron.
So if BP drills oil in Saudi Arabia and then sells it in, say, Egypt, do you think the UK makes money from that because the company has “British” in its name?
Since many stockholders are british, and the company has its headquarters in London, yes of course.
But my argument is also historical, where many of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia used to be operated by western oil companies. The Wahhabi fundamentalists were brought into power by the British and Americans to make the access to oil easier for them, Iran was couped by the CIA for western Oil access etc.
Blaming the countries where oil is exploited for the fossil society that was built and is maintained by western countries is cynical and hypocritical.
But my argument is also historical, where many of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia used to be operated by western oil companies. The Wahhabi fundamentalists were brought into power by the British and Americans to make the access to oil easier for them, Iran was couped by the CIA for western Oil access etc.
Blaming the countries where oil is exploited for the fossil society that was built and is maintained by western countries is cynical and hypocritical.
And thats exactly the excuse these people will use to pass the blame, when today, right now, its those countries that are in control of it and have profited BY FAR the most from it. So I really dont think its cynical to say that the people that profit from the fossil fuel industry should pay for climate change. Really thats the message climate activists have been saying for many years. Its just Gordon Brown is pointing out who those people are.
Shouldn’t the consumers of oil be donating instead?
After all, it’s our fault those nations are drilling up dinosaur juice.
What happens to the gargantuan amounts of petrol tax collected by the UK government every year?
