Over two million climate justice campaigners at the United Nations have signed a petition to make fossil-fuel companies pay more taxes for the climate damage they caused.

The campaigners on Tuesday presented the petitions with a combined total of over two million signatures to the Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Action at the United Nations, Selwin Hart,  calling on governments to make polluters pay and ensure fossil-fuel companies are taxed more to pay their fair share for the climate damage they caused.

The petition presentation took place in New York as world leaders gathered for the UN General Assembly, following a season marked by devastating wildfires, floods and deadly climate disasters, alongside continued energy insecurity linked to dependence on oil and gas.

“The fossil fuel industry right now is earning extraordinary profits. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the five largest oil companies have earned half a trillion in profits. As the climate crisis accelerates, developing countries are being starved of the resources they need to protect their communities and to safeguard livelihoods from a crisis they did literally nothing to cause. This is unjust. This is the heart of climate injustice,” said Mr Hart at the presentation of the petition. 

 He added, “Polluters must pay, and the UN supports this effort, we are with you. We urge you to use every single legal and lawful tool at your disposal. Regulate, legislate and litigate. Civil society must use every tool at your disposal to hold the polluters accountable. You are on the right side of history.”

The action, which drew Make Polluters Pay International Coalition alongside frontline campaigners and communities, highlighted the growing gap between the costs being borne by ordinary people and the extraordinary profits continuing to flow to fossil-fuel companies.

The campaign was meant to pressure governments to introduce binding measures that make fossil-fuel companies contribute to the costs of the damage they caused, including climate damages taxes, surtaxes on fossil-fuel profits and fines to fund recovery, adaptation and a just transition.

According to the campaigners, there can be no meaningful conversation about security or climate justice while economies remained exposed to volatile fossil-fuel markets and communities left to carry the costs of climate disruption. 

The campaign showed that ending dependence on fossil fuels and investing in clean, affordable renewable energy was essential to building genuine energy security, noting that permanently higher taxes on fossil fuel profits were a crucial part of making it happen.

The 350.org executive director, Anne Jellema, said, “For years, campaigners and communities on the frontlines have been saying the same thing: the companies that have profited from fossil fuels must pay their fair share of the costs of the crisis they helped create. Today, that demand is moving into the mainstream.

“We have watched homes burn, communities flood and families struggle with the rising costs of climate and energy crises, while fossil-fuel companies continue to make extraordinary profits. We pay. They profit. It’s time to change that. Now the voices of more than two million people are being brought to the United Nations. Governments have the power to make polluters pay, and they must use it.” 

The co-founder of the Make Polluters Pay International Coalition, Louise Hutchins, described the two million signatures as a powerful signal of the scale of public anger as oil profits soared. 

“The movement for polluters to pay is growing rapidly, public pressure is mounting, and the politics are shifting. Politicians are starting to listen. Now governments need to catch up,” she said.

“The biggest oil companies keep chasing profit to the last barrel, fueling the very disasters wrecking lives, ready to burn everything behind them rather than change course. The wealthiest polluters should be permanently taxed more to pay for the damage they cause, not the families and communities left to pick up the bill.

“Governments now face a clear choice, and too many are still on the wrong side of it: keep shielding the wealthiest polluters, or stand with the rest of us paying the price. This is how we take the profit out of destruction and protect the generations to come. It is us, or them,” Executive Director, Greenpeace International, Mads Christensen, noted.

The campaigners insisted governments now have a clear mandate from millions of people, including accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels, investing in clean and affordable renewable energy, and making the companies that had profited from fossil fuels pay their fair share of the costs of the crisis.

“Every religion teaches the same moral principle: you do not get to harm your neighbor and walk away. That is why religious leaders around the globe are calling for climate polluters to pay for the damage they have caused. 

“For 50 years, the fossil fuel industry has enjoyed $3 billion in daily profits while knowingly creating pollution responsible for one in five deaths globally. Communities worldwide are absorbing the mounting costs of climate damage,” GreenFaith executive director, GreenFaith, Fletcher Harper, stated.