The fossil fuel industry is powerful, but so are we!

We’ve had big wins 👉 made the climate crisis a major issue on political agendas, shown how Big Oil is responsible, pushed leaders on climate action, & championed renewable energy projects for our communities.

We’ll keep up the fight in 2026!

Australia: Analysis of published political donation data showed that Australia’s fossil fuel industry giants, including Woodside, Santos, Chevron & Adani, were joined by several of the industry’s major lobby groups in gifting a combined $3.8 million to Labor, Liberals & the Nationals parties.

Indonesia: In 2019, a documentary was released that highlighted the links between Indonesian coal and energy companies and the country’s political elite. This included those running for the highest office in the April 17 2025 election.

India: The energy and mining giant Vedanta Resources Ltd supported Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Contribution reports analyzed by OCCRP show that two Vedanta-linked trusts alone donated $6.16 million to the party between 2016 and 2020.

United Kingdom: Last year, news broke that right-wing party Reform UK had received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019.

United States: Big Oil spent $445m in the last election cycle to influence Trump and Congress, according to a report by Climate Power. Plus, David Suzuki shared that many fossil fuel companies have worked to get laws passed that punish protesters in the US.

Canada: Fossil fuel companies and their industry associations lobbied the federal government an average of five times per working day in 2023, according to a new analysis from Environmental Defence.

The fossil fuel industry has its claws in climate policy decision makers, our governments, and also our political elections.

Here are some concrete examples from around the world 👇

For example, phrases such as “energy security” ultimately become a buzzword used to justify business as usual for the fossil fuel industry, despite it being crucial that we move away from fossil fuels to achieve that security.

Not only does this give Big Oil plenty of opportunity to sway the climate negotiations, it also helps them co-opt language and control popular narratives.

It even allows them to influence which climate solutions are seen as possible and realistic.
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Evidence from multiple investigations highlights a coordinated campaign to make the global south “less inclined” to support the UN-led climate treaty process, including in the host region of COP30, Latin America.

Big Oil has also been disguising ads in news outlets – mostly promoting false climate solutions like carbon capture & portraying fossil fuel companies as climate-friendly. Since COP29 in November 2024, InfluenceMap found that the use of pro-fossil fuel narratives in advertising increased by a third.

We all know COP is full of fossil fuel lobbyists – but did you know that in the month leading up to COP30 in Belém, Big Oil increased its Google ads in Brazil by 2,900%?

CAAD, the Climainfo Institute, and C3DS found 665 ads from Petrobras and over 10,000 ads from Saudi Aramco during 2025.