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These climate-wrecking companies’ relentless pursuit of profit is putting billions of lives and livelihoods at risk right now. Hurricane Beryl, for example, has caused untold damage across the Caribbean and other regions.
There’s no doubt this disaster was fuelled by climate change. July is the very beginning of the Caribbean’s hurricane season. Beryl was the earliest hurricane of such a magnitude since records began and experts are sure that warming oceans helped create the conditions for it.
The stories that have emerged in the aftermath of the hurricane are heartbreaking. People have lost their lives or seen their homes destroyed.
In Grenada, one island saw around 98% of its building structures damaged or destroyed. The country’s Prime Minister called the havoc the hurricane has wreaked “almost Armageddon-like".
And in St Vincent and the Grenadines, around 90% of infrastructure was damaged in this climate fuelled disaster. Almost entire islands have been flattened while fossil fuel companies have raked in billions.
In response to Hurricane Beryl, the UK government has pledged an extra £500,000 in support for the most impacted countries in the region.
But the global south is going to need more than small funding increases when the worst happens to manage the damage that corporations in the global north are causing climate-hit communities.
The full extent of Hurricane Beryl’s destruction is still unknown, but history suggests the costs of fixing it will be huge: one previous hurricane caused Grenada damage that was worth 200% of its GDP.
Shamefully, Shell and BP’s combined profits over the last year amount to over £3 million more than the combined GDP of 6 of the Caribbean countries worst hit by Hurricane Beryl. Given the role these company have played in fuelling climate change, this money should go towards loss and damage funding, rather than lining the pockets of billionaire CEOs.
It’s time for governments to step up and step in. It’s time for polluting business models to be dismantled so that the world can phase out fossil fuels, and communities in global south can protect themselves from an escalating climate crisis. It’s time to make polluters pay.
If you agree, sign the petition today.
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