This summer, millions of people have felt the dire consequences of climate change as they faced extreme, record-breaking heat. And the Big Oil companies fueling those heat waves are seeing their profits soar, a new analysis finds.
In the first quarter of 2026, the world’s six biggest oil companies—BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies—saw a combined net income of $23 billion. For Q2, that figure is expected to nearly double to $45 billion, according to an Oxfam report based on financial analysts’ forecasts.
For the entirety of 2026, those companies are projected to have full-year profits totalling $147 billion, more than their combined profits over the previous 21 months.
At the same time, the report highlights, the emissions from these oil companies have been directly linked to climate change—and specifically to heatwaves, which are becoming both more frequent and intense as we burn more fossil fuels.
The historical emissions from five of those oil companies (BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies) were high enough to have caused one in four heatwaves between 2000 and 2023. (Data for the sixth company, Eni, was not available.)
“Fossil fuel corporations are making a killing, literally and figuratively,” Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead Mariana Paoli said in a statement. “As extreme heat, floods and storms devastate communities across the world, the industry is preparing another bonanza of profits.”
Climate change is fueling extreme heat
Extreme heat is one of the most dangerous impacts of climate change. A late June heat wave that hit across Europe led to more than 10,000 excess deaths.
Extreme heat is also becoming more frequent and intense. Across the United States, some 70 million people faced extreme heat warnings in late July, the third “heat dome” event in the span of one month. Climate change has at least doubled the number of extreme heat days experienced in nearly 200 countries.
Emissions from burning fossil fuels have intensified these heatwaves—and experts have even directly linked heatwaves to Big Oil companies.
A previous study on heatwaves published in Nature found that climate change increased the probability of all 213 heatwaves reported between 2000 and 2023. Climate change specifically made 55 of those heatwaves at least 10,000 times more likely—meaning they would have been “virtually impossible without anthropogenic influence,” the study notes.
That study looked at how emissions from “carbon majors,” meaning oil, gas, coal, and cement producers, influenced those events. Oxfam’s analysis teased out the emissions from those five Big Oil companies specifically to link those companies to one in four heatwaves.
Fast Company reached out to all six oil companies for comment on the report but did not immediately hear back.
Oil and gas companies responsible for environmental damage
The Oxfam analysis highlights how oil and gas companies bear an “outsized” responsibility for climate change.
In 2025 alone, Big Oil companies were responsible for $60 billion in environmental damage, the analysis found.
Together, those six top oil companies emitted a combined 358.3 million tonnes of scope 1 and 2 CO2e emissions that year, the same as the annual emissions of 55 million people. (That figure doesn’t even include scope 3, or emissions from the companies’ supply chains and customers).
As more people experience the impacts of climate change, like through heatwaves, these companies plan to increase their fossil fuel production by 14% by 2030, compared to 2024 levels—equivalent to 2.5 million more barrels of oil pumped a day.
Amid all that, profits are booming. One of the biggest winners is ExxonMobil, which is expected to report that its Q2 profits have tripled, amounting to $1,800 made every second over the last three months.
To counter that impact, Oxfam suggests taxing Big Oil profits as a way to pay for climate damages and adaptation efforts, specifically in the Global South.
A tax on the first 3% of profits at a 20% rate, and on any profits above that at 50% (profits deemed ‘excessive’ by Oxfam) could raise $400 billion in one year.
“Until governments make the richest polluters pay, fossil fuel corporations will keep driving us deeper into climate chaos,” Paoli said. “Taxing the richest polluters could help close the gap in funding for climate adaptation and speed the transition towards renewable energy.”
