The Oil And Gas Obstruction Network Blocking Canadian Climate Action
Geoff Dembicki
Abstract
Canada’s leading oil and gas producers loudly insist these days that they are working towards a “net-zero” future where greenhouse gases are declining—yet they’re still undertaking massive fossil fuel expansions. This is made politically possible by an obstruction network whose reach is amplified through Facebook and other forms of digital media. Drawing from my years of investigative reporting with the climate media outlet DeSmog, I show in this essay that while the country’s top oil and gas producers portray themselves to policymakers as concerned climate leaders, those same companies are helping support movements undermining the science of climate change and attacking climate advocates as anti-Indigenous radicals. Though the strategy of vying for elite respectability while backing various forms of climate crisis denial appears contradictory, both tactics serve the same end goal: to delay or obstruct climate legislation that could reduce the industry’s profits.