OIL and gas companies were accused of offering spin over substance yesterday as they vowed to cut emissions despite being projected to produce billions of tonnes of CO2 in coming years.

A new analysis by Global Witness has revealed fossil fuel firms that promised to reduce emissions at the Cop28 summit will produce the equivalent of 150 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050.

Fifty firms, including Shell, ExxonMobil, Equinor and TotalEnergies, promised to make their operations net zero by 2050 during the climate conference in Dubai last month.

But no formal agreement was reached to slow oil and gas production, which Global Witness said represents about 90 per cent of these companies’ total carbon footprints.

Patrick Galey, senior fossil fuels investigator at Global Witness, said: “How can these CEOs keep insisting that their products play a role in solving a problem, the very root of which is those same products?

“We need a rapid and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels, and fossil fuel bosses must be locked out of climate talks.

“Everything else is marketing and spin, pure and simple.”

Friends of the Earth climate co-ordinator Jamie Peters said: “At a time when people all over the world are facing extortionate living costs – with the volatility of global gas and oil markets among the biggest factors driving up prices – and the mounting effects of climate breakdown, the companies fuelling both continue to cash in at our expense.

“That execs from these very same companies are getting prime access to influential climate talks is so absurd that it hardly registers as surprising. The injustice is breathtaking.”