BP and Shell’s profits larger than GDP of 6 Caribbean nations hit by Hurricane Beryl
IPCC report

BP and Shell’s profits larger than GDP of 6 Caribbean nations hit by Hurricane Beryl

Date: 1 August 2024
Campaigns: Climate

Campaigners demand fossil fuel profits be used to fund loss and damage payments to climate vulnerable regions

BP and Shell’s combined profits over the last year exceed the combined GDP of six of the Caribbean countries worst impacted by Hurricane Beryl, new analysis from NGO Global Justice Now has found.

The combined total of Shell and BP’s profits over the last year amount to £31.2 billion. In contrast, the combined total of Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada amount to £27.7 billion.

Hurricane Beryl has wreaked havoc across large parts of the Caribbean – it was classed as a Category 5 hurricane, the highest intensity possible. Early estimates suggest that Grenada’s losses from Hurricane Beryl amount to a third of their economy.

Research has shown that climate change is leading to more extreme weather around the planet. Experts have called the formation of a category 5 Atlantic hurricane so early in the year “unprecedented”, pointing to the “unusually hot ocean temperatures” which accelerated its destruction.

Commenting, Izzie McIntosh, climate campaigner at Global Justice Now said: “That the profits of two companies alone can outweigh the GDP of six countries already being battered by the climate crisis lays bare the shameful inequity at the heart of the fossil fuel economy.

“People in the Caribbean devastated by the impacts of Hurricane Beryl are left to pick up the pieces, while rich shareholders and fossil fuel CEOs get to rake in the profits, removed from the chaos they’ve played a leading role in creating.

“We need accountability and a government that isn’t afraid to stand up to them – it can start by introducing measures to make these polluting mega-corporations pay up for the climate damage they’ve caused in the global south, as well as a fossil fuel phase out.”

ENDS

Notes

  1. Global Justice Now is a UK-based campaigning organisation part of a global movement to challenge the powerful and create a more just and equal world. We mobilise people in the UK for change, and act in solidarity with those fighting injustice, particularly in the global south.
  2. Data for BP and Shell profits sourced via companies’ quarterly reports.
  3. GDP figures sourced via World Bank, last estimated in 2023.
  4. Data and calculations available on request.