4 decades ago the big gas companies decided to rebrand their fossil fuel methane to “Natural Gas”. Everytime you see natural gas it is greenwashing. It is as dirty as coal. One of the top prizes anywhere for a green PR success.

A personal carbon footprint and calculator was devised by BP in 2003. They promoted that the cause of carbon emissions was individual, while at the same time increasing BP development of new gas and petroleum. They spent $100 million per year over the next 3 years from 2004 to 2006 in advertising this and “Beyond Petroleum”. Many use a carbon footprint calculator and fall into the trap of BP to shift responsibility from themselves to us.

In the real world, there is no recycling infrastructure at scale anywhere. Recycling plastic is pretence. Less than 7% of plastic is recycled globally. Plastic is either not recyclable or there are no factories. We dump another 5% of all plastic into the oceans. The rest we have burnt or shipped to China Philippines or African countries. It is so bad, it is probably not worth dropping plastic into a bin.

Only 1 plant in the world operates in a coal fired power plant and even in that plant less than 50% of the carbon is captured. It is a fossil fuel con. We are meant to believe that the whole of the world – oil, gas, cement, steel mills are capturing CO2. That is just untrue.

All bonds should be green. We are in a climate emergency. Less than 1% of the $130 Trillion bond market are so-called green bonds, which means 99% of all other bonds are invested in fossil fuel or their products. Not only are these non-green bonds supporting existing fossil fuels, but at worse, they power a feel-good deception.

Lots of company say they will plant trees to offset the carbon emissions. But that means they are not making any steps to reduce existing carbon emissions. They are simply passing the buck. All companies need to reduce their emissions to get to carbon zero. Getting to net zero is simply not good enough. 2 issues. 1) these polluting companies have no incentive to stop polluting. 2) Even if it was possible to offset, the polluters should not be making money. E.g. Shell propaganda makes a profit on selling consumers their “planting trees” and we, the consumer are providing profits to Shell for their deception!

Voluntary carbon markets do not work. Carbon markets have to be legislated, monitored and real. People only change if there is money to be made, money to be lost or it is the law. Without law, companies will focus on not losing money, and that will more likely to be avoiding stranded assets, such as carbon intensive products and production. Voluntary carbon markets were supposed to be a transition to last until 2020. They are still voluntary in most countries.

Every single net zero plan is is not worth the paper it is written on, without specific actions. We have to move to zero. Plans are often a simple way to avoid reducing carbon. 1) They appear to pledge. 2) What they commit to – and is very little, 3) what they leave out and 4) what is unclear. An example is the Australian plan – a plan for a planphlet.

The Norwegian Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) has announced net zero by interim emissions by 2030, so it presents itself reducing selling fossil fuels and changing to renewable energy. In 2021 it actually only sold 0.54% zero carbon so 99.4% was fossil fuel.

IEA 7 key principles sound good, but what you discover is they completely avoid gas, coal, renewable or fossil fuels.

Insurance companies are massively greenwashing. 1) They have some $30trillion under management yet, do not invest in fighting climate change. 2) They support the current fossil fuel industry, for without insurance, fossil fuel companies would cease to operate. They do not insure nuclear as the risk is too high so taxpayers insure that through Governments. Insurance companies make money from the fossil fuel companies, then charge consumers who have to deal with the consequences of climate change. Out of 30 insurers in the world, 29 continue to back fossil fuel, and ignore the Paris Agreement. (Podcast 45)

Law firms representing fossil fuel economy enable them climate deny and lawyers make money defending companies against consumers who have brought civil and legal suits. They willing defend fossil fuel companies. These fossil fuel companies are destroying the planet we, and lawyers, live on. (Podcast 46) They are the silent enablers.

ESG Consultants have jumped on the bandwagon to assist companies to improve their ESG reporting. They do nothing to actually reduce emissions. Their mantra appears to keep burning fossil fuels but report to bond markets that we are making progress. A plan to make a plan. (Podcasts 49 and 50)

Saudi is planning to plant 10 billion trees, but has no rivers, none. They have a few oasis, and a few lakes. They already consume twice as much water as any other nation in the world. How do you grow trees in an arid environment? Pure Spin.

Shipping companies may claim that shipping gas cargoes are carbon neutral. Look behind this, and they are using carbon offsets – but these carbon offsets are just pieces of paper they may have got voluntary credits, mostly like Saudis planting trees. They do nothing to reduce the carbon emissions from exploration, production, refining, shipping to a compression facility, pumping, shipping and then ultimately burning the methane gas.