The world’s major oil and gas companies claim they are leading the energy transition. They spend billions on PR to brand themselves as part of the solution. The data we’ve reviewed tells a different story.
Where a rapid transition to renewables is taking place, incumbent fossil fuel firms have almost nothing to do with it. Analysis by one of us shows that the largest 250 oil and gas companies only own 1.42% of global renewable energy, and just 0.01% of the energy they extract comes from renewable sources.
For decades, many Indigenous peoples and environmental activists have accused the fossil fuel industry of offering “false solutions”. These are projects that amplify the industry’s green credentials while leaving its core business model untouched. Our research supports their case.
We argue that fossil fuel companies’ deployment of renewable energy, biofuels, carbon capture and storage (CCS), green hydrogen and carbon offsetting isn’t designed to oppose decarbonisation, but to manage the conversation around renewables. False solutions signal compliance while helping to mute calls for a systemic transformation.
Mapping the delay
Drawing on the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice, the world’s largest environmental conflict database based at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, we mapped and analysed 48 projects run by fossil fuel firms. These ranged from biofuels to CCS and forest restoration schemes, as well as some renewable energy projects that are owned and used by these firms.
Llavero-Pasquina et al
Crucially, we found that these were rarely displacing fossil fuels. Instead, they justify further use of oil, gas or coal.
For instance, CCS facilities are often linked to “enhanced oil recovery”. That involves CO₂ captured from a power plant or factory being injected into wells to squeeze out more fossil fuels from underground reservoirs – an approach that actually extends the lifespan of oil fields. The industry’s own documents back this up: the Global CCS Institute’s 2025 status report lists 77 commercially facilities in operation around the world. Of these, it notes 33 were developed to enhance oil recovery.
Likewise, “clean hydrogen” is often used to greenwash projects that are actually built on continued gas production. Even renewables can become false solutions. We found solar and wind farms built specifically to power refineries and oil and gas drilling. These projects don’t decarbonise the grid, they simply make it easier and cheaper to extract fossil fuels.
New tech, old injustices
False solutions do more than lock in fossil fuel dependence. Across the 48 cases there were examples of land conflicts. Carbon offset schemes often involve high emitters paying to protect or restore a forest or other ecosystem, to “make up” for their emissions. But in practice, they can lead to the enclosure of previously common land and the loss of communal or Indigenous rights. Biofuel plantations can displace smallholders, replacing local food systems with industrial-scale farms.
Indigenous and traditional communities are disproportionately affected by false solutions. Many projects are sited on ancestral or sacred land without meaningful consultation or consent.
Resistance to these projects is often framed by the fossil fuel industry and its supporters as hostility to climate action or a form of nimbyism. But our data suggests that, in many cases, these communities are opposed to projects that perpetuate the fossil fuel economy.
We also found evidence of governments channelling public subsidies to fund many of these projects. Such cases amount to a direct cash transfer from taxpayers to private companies for promises that deliver minimal emissions reductions.
They are, therefore, in effect helping to delay the end of the fossil fuel era.
Yet these projects have enabled politicians to claim they are climate leaders without having to confront a powerful industry.
After examining these 48 conflicts, one lesson becomes unmistakable: false solutions are not experimental missteps. They are in effect helping to delay the end of the fossil fuel era.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login