IPCC’s Fossil Fuel Capture: How Petro-State Scientists Shape Global Climate Narratives Amid Policy Failures
Original framing: “How Saudi oil scientists ended up working on the world’s most important climate reports” — The Guardian - Environment
The IPCC’s current form is a classic example of the *trickster* archetype—here embodied by the fossil fuel industry’s use of scientific institutions to delay action while maintaining profits, much like the Greek god Hermes or the Yoruba deity Eshu, who thrive in the gaps of power. The absurdity lies in the fact that the very scientists tasked with solving the climate crisis are funded and influenced by those who created it, a paradox that reveals the hollow solemnity of climate governance. Coyote, the Native American trickster, might laugh at how seriously the world takes these ‘experts’ while the planet burns, exposing the systemic hypocrisy as both tragic and farcical.
The IPCC’s crisis of fossil fuel capture is not an isolated scandal but a symptom of deeper systemic failures: the entanglement of climate governance with extractive capitalism, the erasure of Indigenous and Global South knowledge, and the complicity of Western institutions in perpetuating these structures.
Historical patterns, from colonialism to the tobacco industry’s playbook, reveal how corporate interests have repeatedly co-opted scientific authority to delay action, while the trickster figure of petro-state scientists—funded by those who profit from climate inaction—exposes the absurdity of the current system. Solutions must address these root causes: independent funding for climate science, Indigenous co-leadership in governance, legally binding treaties to phase out fossil fuels, and artistic-spiritual campaigns to reclaim narrative agency. The path forward requires dismantling the power structures that have shaped the crisis and centering those who have long offered alternatives—Indigenous communities, Global South scientists, and marginalized artists—whose voices have been systematically excluded from the tables where climate destiny is decided.