The United Nation’s secretary-general, António Guterres, has strongly criticised the world’s biggest oil and gas companies for making “excessive” record profits from the current energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while people around the world suffer from increased prices.
“The combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year are close to $100 billion,” Mr Guterres said., Exxon, Chevron, and TotalEnergies – earned nearly $51 billion in the first quarter of 2022 – almost double what they made in the same period last year. “And I urge people everywhere to send a clear message to the fossil fuel industry and their financiers that this grotesque greed is punishing the poorest and most vulnerable people while destroying our only common home, the planet,” he said.
He added that the war is also having a huge and multi-dimensional impact far beyond Ukraine, through a threefold crisis of access to food, energy and finance.