Corbyn and Sanders vow to crack down on fossil fuel firms

Matthew Taylor
Thu 10 Oct 2019

Excerpt:

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have pledged to crack down on fossil fuel companies in light of the Guardian’s investigation revealing that the world’s leading fossil fuel giants are linked to more than a third of carbon emissions in the modern era.

Bernie Sanders, leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said they would take measures to rein in big oil corporations to protect the public and prevent the worst impacts of climate breakdown.

Sanders said the fossil fuel industry knew “climate change was real” but instead of acting it had “built phoney think tanks, put stooges on TV and lied over and over to the American people about the facts”. He added: “What do you do with the executives who destroyed the planet to fill their own pockets? When I’m president, you better believe we’re going to bring criminal charges against them.”

Corbyn, who on Wednesday visited a new windfarm to highlight Labour’s plans to transform the economy away from fossil fuels, said: “Billions of people are suffering the worst effects of climate change because of a few companies which are profiting from selling fossil fuels.”

And he underlined the party’s determination to take on the companies – and their financial backers – who are driving the climate crisis.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/corbyn-sanders-fossil-fuels-us-uk-climate-change-big-oil