This article will be a culmination of a heap of research regarding climate change, its origins, and the main stakeholders involved. I hope to uncover the true roots behind this global bogeyman.

Climate Change: Who's really responsible for this global crisis?

When I began researching this question, I expected a quick and simple answer; Everyone's as responsible as everyone else. But as I kept digging, finding connections between the media,

trillion dollar corporations and individual consumers, I realised that the story is far more convoluted.

But first, let’s focus on what we already know for sure.

Climate change is caused by trapping the sun's heat within the Earth's atmosphere due to greenhouse gases like Carbon Dioxide and Methane (NASA, 2024). It’s coined the “Greenhouse Effect,” and the gases that cause it are produced in bulk by man-made sources like fossil fuel plants, livestock and transportation (IPCC, 2023). After all we've learned about sustainability, global warming and climate change, all of this should just be common knowledge. You might not know the proportion; which of these sources has the biggest effect? I’ll say a percentage: 75%. 75% of all global emissions are created by fossil fuel plants, owned by corporate or state-owned entities (Ritchie & Roser, 2020). For our whole lives, we’ve been told about the huge responsibility that we, the consumer, have to prevent this crisis, even though we contribute a comparatively minuscule amount to emissions.

So if that’s the truth, why are we still emphasising shorter showers, paper straws, and recycling habits instead of pushing for action from the corporations truly driving this disaster?

Well, let’s go back a little further. It’s the 1980s, and a team of scientists from Exxon and Shell (some of the biggest oil companies at the time) realise that if they keep going at this rate, C02 could double by 2030, and global warming would rise by 2-3 °C (Supran & Oreskes, 2017). They knew the cataclysmic effects this would have on the environment, but rather than dial back on the drilling or push for more fossil fuel regulations, they did something horrible, yet ingenious. 

Rather than warning the public about the dangers of climate change, they poured hundreds of millions into advertising campaigns that paint the picture as an individual issue and biased research that questions the most basic climate science (Ekwurzel et al., 2017).In addition, they’ve embedded themselves in our culture, in news outlets, universities, and public education campaigns. Companies like Aramco and BP sponsor green initiatives to appear eco-conscious, while expanding their drilling operations under the radar (Brulle, 2018). They push the narrative that “clean coal” (a real thing by the way), or “carbon capture,” programs are the solution to climate change, even though the IPCC warned that these solutions can’t replace genuine reduction in fossil fuel use. The result is a culture that thinks climate change is a lifestyle rather than a corporate issue.

But that’s inconsequential, because no matter how much they convince us they aren’t the problem, surely they can’t get the government too… right? 

Behind closed doors, oil and gas firms spend heaps and heaps of money to alter government policy. According to data from the U.S Senate lobbying disclosure act, the fossil fuel industry spends over $100 million annually lobbying policymakers (OpenSecrets, 2024). The money goes straight to the pockets of big oil-funded political parties, politicians who shape energy laws around the best wishes of oil firms, and candidates who promise to “protect our precious jobs in oil and gas.” The result is a political system where subsidies towards fossil fuels are all but expected, transitions to renewables are delayed, and any useful climate legislation faces monumental resistance time and time again.

So what can we really do? From all the way over here, it seems we’re David and they’re Goliath, that there’s a mountain of odds stacked against us. Well, to that, it’s a simple supply and demand situation. The more we as consumers push for companies, politicians, and culture that are overtly anti fossil fuels, and pro renewable energy, the more we as a species benefit.

Don’t take this article as a sign to relieve yourself of all your responsibility; keep recycling, don’t take too many road trips and vacations every year, and limit how much your household emits. But, the next time an oil billionaire, or an orange man in a misfitting suit, tells you that climate change is your problem, think for yourself, and maybe we as a community can fight for a better world for all of us.

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