Mickaël Correia: The investigation that reveals how climate disaster is being covered up

Climate Criminals: The Multinationals That Are Devastating the Planet is the latest book by French journalist Mickaël Correia , published by Altamarea and translated by Miguel Tomás Sampedro. It is an investigation that exposes, by name and surname, the large corporations responsible for the ecological and social collapse facing the planet.

Correia delves into public reports, CEO speeches, and shareholder minutes to show how companies like Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, and TotalEnergies operate with complete impunity. Although the data is public, the real obstacle—he claims—lies not with the companies themselves, but with the states that protect and conceal them.

From diplomatic lobbies to speeches promoting greenwashing—the strategy of appearing environmentally friendly while polluting more—the book debunks the dominant narrative that blames individual consumers while large emitters continue to expand their business. A relentless x-ray of global fossil capitalism.

–What was the biggest obstacle to investigating companies that pollute the planet?

–The truth is, I haven't encountered any serious obstacles because everything is "out there," so to speak. Nothing is hidden: companies clearly communicate their plans in their reports, at shareholder meetings, or in their CEO speeches. While the IPCC warns that so much energy infrastructure is already in place that we'll exceed a +1.5°C temperature increase, and the International Energy Agency has been repeating since 2021 that opening new oil or gas wells prevents us from achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the energy giants continue to act as if nothing has happened. Every month they boast about having discovered a new field, like one offshore Namibia or a gas reserve in Qatar. Even Gazprom welcomed me to their offices on the Champs-Élysées in Paris to explain that their gas "is good" because it's cheap and abundant. The most severe hypocrisy and misinformation come from states. In international forums, they present themselves as "green," but behind the scenes, they continue to support polluters. For example, France leads the discourse on the exit from fossil fuels, but in practice, one in three French embassies worldwide lobby for TotalEnergies. At COP28 in Dubai, the French government gave the CEO of TotalEnergies a special pass to participate in high-level climate negotiations.

–How did you verify the data when companies like Saudi Aramco and Gazprom are so opaque?

–It's clear that companies like Gazprom and Aramco underestimate their greenhouse gas emissions. But fortunately, there are scientists, independent think tanks, and NGOs that do tremendous work monitoring and researching the industry. One way I used was to take a fossil fuel project and break it down: what impact it has on the climate and the environment, how many people work there, which banks finance it, and which states support it. That way, piece by piece, like a puzzle, you can build a very accurate and documented picture of what I call "fossil capitalism."

–You decided to name those responsible by name: Did you fear legal or diplomatic consequences?

–It wasn't an ethical issue, but a journalistic necessity. Yes, there was a decision to name names, but above all, to explain who they are: Who is Amine Nasser, CEO of Aramco? What connection does Alex Miller, CEO of Gazprom, have with Putin's entourage? These people have very violent rhetoric in the face of climate chaos. Nasser says oil is necessary to curb global warming. Pouyanné (TotalEnergies) claims that, thanks to plastic, oil has a future. It's utter cynicism. But beyond the names, I was interested in showing what underpins their power: What is a gas pipeline? How does a coal-fired power plant work? Where are the petrochemical complexes? I sought to make visible this physical infrastructure that today threatens life on the planet.

–If 70% of emissions come from just 100 companies, why is there so much emphasis on “individual responsibility”?

–For 30 years, a dominant narrative has prevailed: that stopping the climate crisis depends on changing our personal habits. Governments and even environmentalist groups repeat that with small, individual “green gestures” we can save the planet. In fact, the very idea of a “carbon footprint” was promoted by an advertising agency hired by BP to make people believe that the problem isn't companies, but consumers. Individual gestures may have symbolic value, but above all they reflect a liberal logic: individualizing responsibility. As if racism or sexism were personal issues, when in reality they are power structures. The same thing happens with climate change. This individualistic approach obscures those truly responsible. That's why no one knows who Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, or China Energy are. But if these three companies were a country, they would be the third largest emitter on the planet, after China and the US.

–Why do the health consequences of climate change rarely appear in the mainstream European media?

–Because they affect the poorest, the most vulnerable, and people in the Global South the most. In the last 30 years, 79% of deaths and 97% of people affected by climate disasters were from the Global South. And the mainstream media doesn't care. This year, for example, there was more coverage of Paris Hilton's burned-down Malibu home than of the heat wave in India that killed dozens and affected millions.

–Does the climate crisis reproduce colonial, racist, and patriarchal logics?

–It doesn't just reproduce them: it builds upon them. To ignore the racist and colonial component of the climate crisis is to deny its very roots. The fossil fuel industry is sustained by a colonial extractivist model: resources are plundered from the Global South—those hardest hit by climate change—while these countries emit very little. In the Global North, non-white populations are the most affected. In the US, an African American person is 54% more likely to suffer from pollution than a white person. There is also a gender dimension: research shows that men have a 16% larger carbon footprint than women, in part due to habits linked to toxic masculinity, such as owning large cars or eating more meat.

–What responsibility do the banks and funds that finance these industries have? Why is there no international oversight?

–Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the world's 65 largest banks have invested $7.9 trillion in the fossil fuel industry. JP Morgan Chase leads the way. The reason is simple: it remains highly profitable. In 2022 alone, TotalEnergies, Shell, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Aramco earned $340 billion. TotalEnergies, for example, invests two euros in oil or gas for every euro it invests in renewables and distributes three to its shareholders.

–The projections for 2030 and 2040 exceed what was agreed in Paris. Was this a deliberate failure?

–These companies consciously decided to sabotage the Paris Agreement signed by nearly 200 countries. They ignore all scientific warnings, even though they've known since the 1960s that their activities damage the climate. The fossil fuel sector has chosen to destroy the planet's habitability and put the most vulnerable at risk to protect the profits of a few shareholders. That's why I use the term "climate criminals": it's not a provocation, it's an objective fact.

–“Climate violence” is often referred to as a silent war. Does this concept have political or judicial weight today?

–No, unfortunately, it's completely absent from political language. And yet we're in the midst of the "Drill baby drill" era (more extraction, as Trump proposes), or governments like Lula's, which in June granted permits for oil exploration off its coast and will host COP30. However, many major oil companies (BP, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, etc.) are currently facing more than 100 climate-related lawsuits, most of them in the US. Since the Paris Agreement, these lawsuits have almost tripled. These lawsuits expose the lies of greenwashing: claims that they will reach "neutrality by 2050" or that gas is a transitional energy. These lawsuits are key because they can result in multimillion-dollar fines that hurt shareholders.

–How do we in the Global South confront these companies, if even progressive governments are giving in to extractivism?

–We need to build an internationalist ecology: moving away from fossil fuels with solidarity between North and South. Northern countries claim to be “decarbonizing,” but they continue to import oil and gas from the South. Worse still, their energy transition is based on exploiting lithium or uranium in Southern countries. France, for example, has few domestic emissions, but TotalEnergies is a leader in fossil fuel projects in Africa, and Eramet extracts lithium in Indonesia and Argentina under disastrous conditions to produce European electric cars. Moving away from fossil fuels is a decision for the climate, but also for human rights and global justice.

–After all this... can we be optimistic?

Within this tragedy, there is something that can ignite hope: the fossil fuel phase-out unites many struggles. It is a cause of North-South justice, class-based (because the poorest suffer more), feminist (men pollute more and women are more vulnerable), anti-racist, anti-colonial, and also anti-fascist. Today, we see how increasingly authoritarian regimes—Trump, Orbán, Putin—strongly defend the extractivist model. Therefore, fighting climate change is also fighting for democracy and freedom. Saving the planet's habitability is at the crossroads of all struggles for emancipation. And in that, there is reason for hope. Because hope is also political.

Climate Criminals, by Mickaël Correia (Altamarea)