Markus Trilling
Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer - Tax Justice
Eurodad – European Network on Debt and Development
“Why a global surtax on fossil fuel industries’ profits can advance global tax and climate justice”
Taxing polluting capital:
profit taxation for catalysing supply-side transformation
APMDD
Tax the Polluters, Rewrite Global Tax Rules: Financing Survival, Resilience, and Just Transition in Asia
16 September 2026
“the next 20 minutes:”
The scale of fossil fuel industry’s profits
2016-2025 income before taxes of 100 world’s biggest (by revenue) oil and gas companies Source: LSEG screener 1. June 20206; own calculation | ||||||||||
US$ billion / fiscal year | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
Income before Tax | 704 | 734 | 921 | 1.179 | 668 | 184 | 505 | 611 | 402 | 205 |
Petro States = Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kazhakstan |
Asia OECD = Japan, South Korea, Taiwan |
Asia non OECD = Thailand (5), Philippines (3), Vietnam (1) |
Latin America = Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Argentinia |
“15,67% of the top 100’ overall profits in 2024 was generated by companies with their headquarters in Europe”
Appropriation of the profits: Cementing fossil fuel dependency
Appropriation of the profits: Cementing fossil fuel dependency
“The fossil fuel industry is causing and accelerating the climate catastrophe! “
We have a capital allocation issue!
Climate Inequality Report 2023, Fair taxes for a sustainable future in the Global South; Chancel, L., Bothe, P., Voituriez, T. (2023), World Inequality
Lab Study 2023/1
Relative income losses due to climate change, vs. greenhouse gases emissions vs. wealth ownership
Global top 1% wealth: emissions are close to 15% of total
~ 560 million people,
‘the global middle + upper class’
“Relative profitability is what ultimately matters for a transition.”
@Gregor Semieniuk
Best of times, worst of times: record fossil-fuel profits, inflation and inequality
Gregor Semieniuk, Isabella M. Weber, et al.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629625003020
, ,
No causality between electricity price and corporate tax level
We have an economic justice and social equity issue!
We have an issue with international tax cooperation!
“… during commodity booms, i.e. when prices are extraordinarily high, and when windfall profits occur as is the case now, extractive groups book a higher share of profits in tax havens.”
ITO lesson learned from the 2022 EU solidarity contribution is that windfall profits are more effective if the tax is levied on ‘consolidated global profits’.
“In this paper, we calculate the excess profits of energy and fossil fuel companies in the EU during the energy crisis on 2022-2023. A windfall tax on these profits was adopted, which we find could have generated e 73.8 billion, nearly three times the officially reported collection. We document evidence for an avoidance response by large multinationals shifting
profits to jurisdictions where the windfall profits tax was not in force.”
International tax cooperation: UN Tax Convention to the rescue!
The UN Tax Convention is historic opportunity to combine tax justice and climate justice
Surtax on fossil fuel industries’ global profits
Thank you for listening!
What do you think?
Markus Trilling � Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer - Tax Justice
+32 (2) 893 0909
Rue d'Edimbourg 18-26, 1050 Brussels