On a continent where hospitals filled with heatstroke patients and wildfires tore through forests this summer, the numbers told a story that was hard to ignore. Attribution scientists concluded that the most severe and widespread heatwave ever recorded across such a large area of Europe could not have occurred without human-caused climate change. That finding arrived at almost exactly the moment a new analysis revealed that the companies most responsible for that warming are planning to accelerate production. Research by the TPI Global Climate Transition Centre at the London School of Economics found that Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and seven other publicly listed petroleum firms intend to increase output by an average of 14% between 2024 and 2030.

That trajectory is significantly worse than even the International Energy Agency's business-as-usual scenario, which already projects a 5. 9% rise in oil and gas production this decade — a path the IEA says would push global temperatures to a catastrophic 2. 9°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. The IEA has stated plainly that no new long-term oil and gas exploration can be compatible with the Paris Agreement's target of keeping heating well below 2°C.

The financial logic driving this expansion is straightforward: wars in the Middle East have pushed oil prices higher, delivering a surge in profits that companies are now channelling into new wells. What makes this cycle particularly difficult to break is that governments across multiple continents continue to subsidise the same industry. Those subsidies effectively reward the behaviour that scientists say must stop. Several major producers have publicly pledged to align their strategies with the Paris Agreement, a commitment that their own announced production plans appear to contradict directly.

Whether any government will have the political will to replace those subsidies with meaningful windfall taxes — before the next heat record falls — remains an open question.