There are many reasons not to listen to such activists. First, young people tend to have unreliable views on relevant strategy because they are young. This means that they have minimal life experience and are therefore prone to biased perceptions: they have a poor understanding of whether an event is unusual or not. A spike in oil prices or extreme weather will seem much more significant – and scary – to them than to those with decades of experience.

Secondly, young people are less likely to be taxpayers and/or have lower tax rates, so they don’t consider the cost of their proposals. I recall a case many years ago when an anti-nuclear activist, noting a study that suggested that closing all U.S. nuclear power plants would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, said he was willing to pay it. Needless to say, he did not pull out his checkbook:

In addition, there are single-issue activists for oil companies, usually environmentalists. Their position is usually (but not always) driven by environmental factors and environmental factors alone. They do not care about the cost of the proposal or its impact on the company’s operations and profits. True, it’s not their job, but it is the company’s job to have a more comprehensive view of costs and benefits.

This shortcoming is similar to the attitude of those who propose, for example, mandates for the purchase of technology or fuel. Their sole purpose is to promote a technology like electric cars, not to reduce emissions, and using mandates hides their costs.
A few years ago, when I pointed out that California’s zero-emission vehicle requirements in the 1990s were a failure, an environmentalist on the panel pointed out that at least it advanced the technology. Except that the technology being considered then was not state-of-the-art; companies like GM that developed electric vehicles lost all their money and learned very little that is applicable to the current generation of electric vehicles.

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The extraction and transportation of oil can lead to irreversible spills. These spills damage surrounding ecosystems, destroying biodiversity and livelihoods of fenced communities and contaminating drinking water.

Coal mining and fracking produce toxic waste that is known to contaminate water. 

Every year, hundreds of oil spills irreversibly damage the Niger Delta, caused by old and poorly maintained pipelines or criminal activities such as oil theft. Mining operators are unable to clean up these spills, allowing them to continue their devastating impact on the fields, forests and fisheries on which most people in the region depend for food and livelihood. 

The process of fossil fuel production takes up a lot of space, from wells, pipelines and roads to processing and waste management facilities. In many cases, people are forcibly removed from their homes so that companies can extract and produce fossil fuels.

Indigenous peoples are particularly and disproportionately affected by land grabs, as most fossil fuel residues are located on their land. In most cases, the livelihoods and cultural identities of these communities are uniquely linked to their land and natural environment. These cultural connections are threatened by the continued use and extraction of fossil fuels.

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“We are in Monte Carlo, one of the richest places in the world, to make sure that a group of super-rich and powerful insurance companies do not exacerbate the hardships of some of the world’s poorest communities in the DRC,” said Irene. Wabiwa, International Project Manager for the Congo Basin at Greenpeace Africa.

Activists disrupted the conference to call on the insurance industry to stop supporting the climate crisis. Oil companies want to drill in Congo’s rainforests, destroying communities and biodiversity, and insurance companies should not support them.

The DRC does not have the national capacity to provide insurance for oil exploration and the high risks it entails. As a result, companies that win exploration rights in tenders for DRC oil blocks will likely rely on the services of some of the world’s largest insurance and reinsurance companies, mostly based in Europe and North America.

In July 2022, the DRC announced tenders for exploration rights to 30 oil and gas blocks. 13 of these oil blocks are located in protected areas and national parks, including the Virunga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, despite the promises of the DRC’s Minister of Hydrocarbons, Didier Budimba.

Most importantly, oil tenders in the DRC do not respect the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of indigenous peoples and local communities inhabiting the territories whose exploration rights are being auctioned. Greenpeace Africa forest activists visited eight oil blocks. They found that local communities “were all shocked at the prospect of their land being auctioned off to oil companies,” and follow-up visits a year later revealed growing opposition to the tenders.

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