An international non-governmental organization whose primary aim is to work against poverty and injustice worldwide, ActionAid, has revealed that fourteen fossil fuel companies made profit windfalls of $346.713bn, in 24 months
This was contained in its report recently released, showing that the fossil fuel firms, between June 2021 and June 2022, made $232 billion in net profits, $155.039 billion of which was considered profit windfalls.
ActionAid has offices in 45 countries that work with communities, often via local partner organisations, on a range of development issues.
ActionAid report read, “In the 12 months to July 2023, the top 14 fossil fuel companies by market capitalization, collectively made $278 billion in net profits, an increase of an astounding 278 per cent compared to the average of the reference years (mid-2017 to mid-2021).
“Of these $278 billion net profits, $192b billion can be considered windfall profits – profits that exceed the average from the preceding four years by over 20 per cent.”
The report stated further that in the same period under review – June 2021 to June 2023 – the top 22 financial corporations collectively made $78bn as profit windfalls.
According the document, on the first day of COP27 in 2022, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, had “asked governments to tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies and redirect that money to those in need and countries suffering loss and damage due to climate change impacts.”
Notwithstanding, one year on, it was said that main some European Union Members State, the United Kingdom and a couple of Latin American nations have presented a few temporary and often limited windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies, leaving colossal profits undertaxed – and climate action underfunded
In July 2023, research by Oxfam and ActionAid revealed that 722 mega-corporations raked in $1 trillion a year in windfall profits in 2021 and 2022.
The research evaluated that a windfall tax of 90 per cent on these windfall profits could generate $941 billion, “money that could increase global investment in clean energy by a third.
