Kingston, Jamaica – Greenpeace International strongly condemns the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Council’s decision to extend The Metals Company subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources Inc’s (NORI) exploration contract, despite its support for the pursuit of unlawful deep sea mining via US unilateralism.[1] 

It is public that NORI will be making payments to the government of Naoero (Nauru) if The Metals Company USA engages in unilateral mining.[2] Attention in the remaining days of the ISA Council now turns to the next steps in the global inquiry into companies supporting unilateral mining. 

Louisa Casson, campaigner at Greenpeace International, said:

“Granting an extension sets a dangerous precedent for both the deep sea and the rule of law. This decision risks showing that companies can use aggressive lawsuits to avoid consequences. It also calls into serious question the regulator’s ability to enforce basic compliance under its existing rules and makes the case for an immediate moratorium on deep sea mining more urgent than ever.”

Last Saturday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) explicitly refused to suspend the ongoing inquiry into potential non-compliance by contractors, after TMC’s subsidiaries sued the ISA. Instead, the ITLOS decision focused on ensuring the inquiry follows due process.[3][4][5]

Greenpeace International now demands that governments at the ISA Council establish a clear and robust timeline for concluding the inquiry, to enable governments to act if non-compliance is confirmed. Through these ITLOS legal proceedings, NORI and Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), another wholly owned The  Metals Company subsidiary, have identified themselves as “requiring specific attention to possible non‑compliance” in the inquiry process.

Louisa Casson added: 

“The political responsibility now falls squarely on governments to step up their game to set a clear direction that unlawful deep sea mining will not be tolerated, and fend off a corporate group that deploys strategic litigation to evade scrutiny. This inquiry cannot become a toothless box-checking exercise. The ISA must execute it with absolute rigour, establish a firm timeline without delay, and stand firm against corporate intimidation. Additionally, States must take immediate responsibility and act against any company or national connected to unilateral mining, to disrupt and limit unlawful deep sea mining supply chains. At the ISA, governments must enact a moratorium to protect our ocean and multilateralism from this dangerous industry.”

In July 2025, governments of the ISA Council unanimously decided to investigate potential contractual breaches in light of TMC USA’s highly controversial applications to gain unilateral permission for deep sea mining from the Trump administration, including in the same areas where NORI and TOML hold ISA exploration contracts. At the March 2026 meeting, the ISA Council called for the inquiry to include publicly available information.

Multiple legal experts argue that States Parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) have both an opportunity and an obligation to take action against companies and nationals under their control to prevent their participation in unilateral, unlawful deep sea mining. This is notably the case of Swiss-Dutch offshore giant Allseas, which has signed an agreement to provide TMC USA the technology and infrastructure needed to proceed with unlawful mining, as shown by a legal opinion commissioned by Greenpeace Netherlands.[6] 

ENDS

Notes:

[1] ISA Council decision, adopted 20 July 2026 

[2] Sponsorship agreements between The Republic of Naoero and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (revised 29 May 2025) indicate that NORI willingly anticipated and prepared to accommodate unlawful mining activities – an issue the ISA membership must act upon. 

[3] ITLOS Seabed Disputes Chamber did not rule on whether the ISA violated NORI’s rights, nor did it order a contract extension. It merely directed that both the compliance inquiry and decisions over extensions of ISA contracts proceed separately under standard due process.

[4] Greenpeace International compilation of the events that led to the ITLOS proceedings, as well as the network of companies connected to The Metals Company’s activities. (July 2026) 

[5] Compilation of public information evidencing potential breaches of contract by ISA contractors NORI and TOML (March 2026) 

[6] See legal opinions, for example, from Greenpeace International, Deep Sea Conservation, Fisher and Robb, Lathrop

Contact: 

Sol Gosetti, Media Coordinator for the Stop Deep Sea Mining campaign, Greenpeace International: sol.gosetti@greenpeace.org, +34 633 029 407

Greenpeace International Press Desk (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org, +31 (0)20 718 2470 

We are not just in a “cost‑of‑living crisis”. Across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, fossil‑fuel price shocks are driving a new phase of inflation known as fossilflation, pushing up energy, food and housing costs while oil companies profit.

Aren’t we all weary of reading about the Strait of Hormuz in the news? This tiny strip of waterway not only controls 20-25% of the world’s oil and gas supply, it also has direct power over our everyday bills. Has it finally opened? Or did the deal between Iran and the US collapse again?

In this never-ending guessing game of oil, politics, and keeping up with the cronies of fossil fuels, the one real fallout is that economic costs for all of us, worldwide, have been feverishly climbing, with hardly any respite in sight.

Things are more expensive, globally: the fossil fuel price shock

Triggered by the energy shocks of the Israeli-US war on Iran, prices of everyday goods, from electricity to transport and fuel, have risen massively this year. Households in fuel-importing East Asia and Southeast Asian countries are among the hardest hit. Across Africa, the burden has landed on communities with the least room to absorb it. And across Europe and North America too, families are struggling with higher electricity, food, transport and fuel bills.

In the Philippines, driver Toni Prado’s take-home pay collapsed from 1,000 pesos to 200 pesos for the same three trips.

In South Sudan, where 96% of electricity comes from oil, the government is now rationing power, cutting neighborhoods off from late afternoon until early morning.

In India, families have begun quietly trading imported cooking gas for cheaper firewood and dried cow dung, undoing years of progress toward cleaner, safer kitchens.

From Manila to Juba, Delhi to Berlin, this fossil‑fuel‑driven price shock is following the same pattern: higher energy prices, squeezed wages and governments scrambling to respond.

Data backs this up. In the US, prices are projected to rise around 3.2%, and in Europe, about 2.6%. In Asia the Asian Development Bank estimates prices rose by 5.2%. According to the International Monetary Fund global inflation has been at 4.7% worldwide this year — which is equivalent to two and a half weeks’ worth of your yearly household budget vanishing into thin air. 

One day Hormuz will reopen, but the relief for most of us will still be partial and temporary. That’s because we are stuck in a fossil-fuel shock cycle. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has already triggered one of the biggest global energy price shocks since the 1970s, pushing up gas and electricity prices and driving higher food and transport costs across much of the world, and those impacts are still being felt today. It’s essentially the same, predictable pattern playing out right now, just a few years on, only under the guise of a different geopolitical conflict. So it’s all just a matter of time until the fossil fuel shock hits and prices climb again. 

Calling this repetitive cycle a cost-of-living or an affordability crisis, as many have been doing, would be too simplistic, and frankly inaccurate. What we’re really caught in is a fossil-fuel dependence crisis, actually known as: fossilflation. 

If 2026 were a book about war and rising bills, the word ‘fossilflation’ would have to be on the title 

Fossilflation is a portmanteau of “fossil fuels” and “inflation”. It was coined by Isabel Schnabel, a member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board, in a 2022 speech on energy and inflation. Put simply: fossilflation is when the cost of everything rises because our economic systems are still built to run on fossil fuels.

They are an energy source whose supply and price remain volatile, controlled by a handful of producers, shipping lanes, and governments who can disrupt it on a whim. And it’s a familiar problem because we know that oil shocks have hit roughly every decade since 1973: from the Arab oil embargo and the Iran-Iraq War, to the 1990 Gulf War, the 2008 financial crisis, the Arab Spring, and Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine – each one driving prices up and economies into turmoil.

Every time one of these shocks hits, it’s ordinary households, not oil companies, that absorb the cost through higher bills. So we’re basically all just waiting to see whose decision sends fossil fuel prices, and by extension the wider economy, into disarray next.

What’s in a name: fossilflation vs inflation and the cost‑of‑living crisis

Economics 101 tells us prices of everyday goods and services going up is called inflation. And yes, it’s true, we’re living in a world where everything costs more. Inflation is a useful word on its own, but a slippery one to use in the context we’re living in today, because it describes the effect without naming a cause. You can blame inflation on your government, invisible “markets” or “the economy” and never once have to ask where the money from your rising bills went to, instead. 

Fossilflation goes a step further and names the culprit: our economies’ deep reliance on coal, oil and gas has put us in an economic crisis. Fossil fuels aren’t just something we burn for energy, the system we live in makes them inextricably linked to our food, water, healthcare and insurance systems too.

Which is why oil and gas price hikes also cascade through the prices of other essential goods. Fossil gas is the main feedstock for ammonia, which makes up 70-90% of the cost of producing nitrogen fertiliser, so a gas price spike becomes a fertilizer price spike, which becomes a pricier harvest. Diesel prices do the same to every truck, ship and plane moving that harvest to a shelf, pushing transport costs, and then the price of everything they carry, up in step. Even insurance isn’t immune: the climate disasters fossil fuels help drive have pushed US homeowners’ premiums up 40% faster than inflation in recent years. When the bill for fuel goes up, you can be fairly certain you’ll be writing a higher cheque for higher prices across the board, sooner or later. 

That’s the real distinction between the two words: inflation tells you prices rose. Fossilflation tells you why, and who to send the bill to.

How fossilflation is writing out massive cheques to Big Oil

In just the first 50 days of the US-Israel war in West Asia and North Africa (the Middle East), over US$150 billion had been siphoned from ordinary households to oil and gas companies just through soaring energy prices. 

Even if the Strait of Hormuz swiftly returns to normal operations right now, ordinary households will still be paying out the fallout of elevated oil and gas prices to the tune of $600 billion. And should it continue to be blocked, that hit to households, businesses and governments could be as high as $1 trillion.

While our bills climb mercilessly, Big Oil seems to be doing rather well for itself. Shell’s first-quarter profits jumped 24% to $6.9 billion as the war pushed prices higher. TotalEnergies reported $5.5 billion for the same quarter. Across the industry, the world’s largest oil and gas companies made an estimated $23 billion in excess profits in the first month of the war alone.

And that’s before governments even open their own wallets. Governments worldwide are on course to spend $1.1 trillion propping up the fossil fuel industry in 2026 alone, prioritising short‑term fossil fuel subsidies over a clean energy transition instead of helping people face fossilflation and reducing their economies’ dependence on fossil fuels.

Then there’s the cost of the extreme weather fossil fuels drive: the floods, droughts, hurricanes and cyclones, whose fallout lands several times over, in our bills, in our wellbeing, and in the recovery costs. Air pollution from burning coal, oil and gas is linked to roughly 8.7 million premature deaths a year worldwide, nearly one in five deaths on the planet. Europe’s recent heatwaves added an estimated €700 million (or US$800 million) to electricity bills in France and Germany alone, on top of the 1,300 lives it took. The fossil fuel industry causes at least US$9.3 trillion per year in climate damages and air pollution deaths alone, and pays almost nothing for it. Add to that direct government subsidies and tax breaks, and the total transfer of public money, our money, to the fossil fuel industry reaches $12 trillion a year. That is equivalent to more than $1,400 from every person on Earth. 

This is fossilflation in action. Our money isn’t vanishing into thin air. It’s landing in the wallets of oil executives. If our countries remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain trapped in repeated cycles of fossilflation. 

The way out of fossilflation

The fix to fossilflation has never really been complicated, just largely inconvenient for the people currently profiting from the problem. But the solution does exist, and it’s up to our representatives to act swiftly.

Unlike past cycles of fossilflation, we now have a clear way out of fossil fuel dependency: renewables. Wind and solar power are no longer the plucky underdog, they’ve quietly become the cheapest form of energy in human history. Solar costs have fallen 87% since 2010, battery storage costs have dropped 93% in the same window. Further, in contrast to fossil fuels, renewables don’t rely on being shipped and can be built and owned locally, so their prices remain low and stable once constructed. And quite importantly these days, renewable energy is less, much less likely to fuel conflicts. Governments must now ensure that we can switch to decentralised renewables in a fast, fair and just manner. 

They must make polluters pay on their profits with stronger and more permanent taxes, so that this money can be redirected towards a just transition and supporting those facing the worst impacts of the climate crises. 

And while all this happens, let’s also name the crisis for what it really is. Not just an affordability or cost‑of‑living crisis. We are currently living through fossilflation, but that doesn’t mean we have to ever again.

Mallika Singhal is a Senior Coordinator for Global Communications with 350.org.

Guest authors work with Greenpeace to share their personal experiences and perspectives and are responsible for their own content.

You might not recognise their name, but chances are you’ve had their food in your fridge or in your local restaurant. 

Headquartered in the Netherlands, JBS is the largest meat company on earth. It is controlled by billionaire brothers whose companies have pleaded guilty to bribery, been forced to pay millions to settle labour rights violations cases, and whose supply chain has been linked to massive deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. JBS is also a massive polluter, estimated to be responsible for more climate wrecking methane emissions than oil giants Shell and ExxonMobil combined.

Why JBS’s US$6 billion Nigeria expansion is a climate and human rights threat

Right now, JBS is engaged in a $6 billion global expansion, with almost half earmarked for Nigeria, from where it plans to bring its destructive industrial livestock model to sub-Saharan Africa for the first time. Community groups in Nigeria fear that the expansion will cause irreversible environmental damage and threaten access to land and water that local communities depend on for food security – all to line the pockets of wealthy international elites. 

With a track record like this, it’s easy to see why JBS prefers to stay in the shadows. It has long shirked corporate transparency while peddling empty promises. Its approach to Nigeria appears no different. Information published about its plans is extremely limited and despite the efforts of community groups in Nigeria, no environmental or social impact assessments have been published.

That’s why we need to drag them into the light.

Dragging JBS industrial meat expansion in Nigeria out of the shadows

Earlier this year, Greenpeace Netherlands activists took over JBS’ first shareholder meeting on Dutch soil to deliver a letter demanding they disclose the truth about their expansion plans. Using a new Dutch law which allows access to certain corporate data for the purpose of building litigation against a company, JBS were given 21 days to hand over files relating to the climate, nature and human rights impacts of its historic operations and its planned expansion.

Just hours before the deadline, JBS responded in its usual way: denying responsibility, refusing transparency, and completely dismissing anyone who dares to challenge them. JBS ignored the voices of thousands of Greenpeace supporters who emailed in support of our action and all those in Nigeria whose livelihoods are on the line.

Greenpeace Netherlands hoped it wouldn’t come to this. They didn’t want to trouble a judge with this matter. But JBS’ intransigence has left them no choice. Today, Greenpeace Netherlands has submitted a petition to a Dutch court asking it to force JBS to release the files. This is the first step towards stopping JBS’ dangerous plan to open new industrial frontiers in Africa and beyond before it even starts.

See you in court!

JBS appears to believe that despite moving to the Netherlands, it doesn’t need to follow Dutch rules. Today’s legal action aims to prove it wrong – and lay the ground for a first major climate and nature lawsuit against the dangerous expansion of the global meat industry.

Greenpeace Netherlands believes that JBS’ historic business practices and its future expansion plans are inconsistent with the company’s climate and biodiversity obligations and therefore breach Dutch duty of care, a legal obligation requiring companies to act in line with international human rights law. 

This is the basis of groundbreaking litigation that Greenpeace Netherlands is building against JBS. Today’s action brings us one step closer to that goal. If the judge rules in Greenpeace’s favour, it will be a huge victory for transparency against corporate interest. And it will provide Greenpeace Netherlands with crucial information to robustly challenge JBS’ dangerous business model in court and hold it to account before its global expansion causes further harm.

JBS tears up climate and nature pledges – act now!

This legal intervention couldn’t have come at a more crucial time. Just weeks ago, JBS scrapped flagship commitments to eradicate deforestation from its supply chains and reach Net Zero emissions by 2040. With them, safeguards for traditional communities and Indigenous peoples may well also be gone.

Make no mistake, these were always empty promises that JBS was never realistically going to deliver. But now JBS appears to have given its supply chain carte blanche for the wholesale sacrifice of ecosystems from the Amazon to its new frontiers in sub-Saharan Africa, while abandoning responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions exceeding those of Spain, a country of nearly 50 million people. Its expansion plans will balloon these impacts even further.

We can’t let JBS get away with it. And that’s where you can help.

We believe that public interest must come before commercial confidentiality, that corporate impunity must come to an end and that private wealth accumulation should never trump a healthy planet. We believe states like the Netherlands which host multinational corporations must hold them accountable – wherever they operate in the world. 

But we need a massive wave of public support to show the courts the strength of global concern about JBS’ plans. 

Stand in solidarity with local communities fighting the corporate takeover. Stand up for nature and the climate. Help us stop the new wave of destruction before it starts.

Take JBS to court over its destructive Nigeria expansion Join the People vs. Big Ag

Daniela Montalto is a Global Campaigner at Greenpeace UK based in London.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Greenpeace Netherlands has petitioned a Dutch court seeking to compel meat giant JBS to disclose information in order to challenge its business policies in court. This includes its planned US$ 6 billion global expansion, of which almost half is earmarked for Nigeria.

Elizabeth Atieno, Food Campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said: “JBS’ meat empire expanded hand-in-glove with Amazon destruction, colossal emissions, human rights and corruption scandals, all with barely a semblance of transparency. This is the business model it wants to export to sub-Saharan Africa. JBS promises food security, but its expansion in Nigeria risks causing irreversible environmental damage and the displacement of smallholder farmers to line the pockets of wealthy global elites.

“Nigerians know well from the legacy of companies like Shell the destructive impact wrought by unchecked corporate power. As Greenpeace Africa has argued before the African Court of Human Rights, states with jurisdiction over multinationals must hold those corporate actors accountable – wherever they operate in the world. We welcome this bold legal action: the Netherlands and other European states must not be safe havens for corporations like JBS seeking to evade their responsibilities.”

In light of JBS’ longstanding failure to publish accurate and reliable information on its climate, nature and human rights impacts or its expansion plans, Greenpeace Netherlands views accessing this data as a necessary precursor to formal litigation in order to support its case. The case has the potential to be the first climate litigation of this scale against the livestock industry. This could set a major precedent for future legal challenges against the industrial agriculture sector, a major source of global emissions, particularly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, responsible for 0.5°C of warming since the Industrial Revolution.[1]

Marieke Vellekoop, Executive Director at Greenpeace Netherlands, said: “In a month where JBS has thrown its flagship environmental commitments onto the scrap heap, JBS’ disdain for basic transparency only adds to the impression that this meat giant has something to hide and is desperate to prevent its expansion plans from going public. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to trouble a judge with this matter, but JBS has left us no choice but to seek our right to information through the Dutch courts.

“JBS appears to believe that despite moving to the Netherlands, our rules do not apply to it. This legal action aims to prove it wrong – and lay the ground for a first major climate and nature lawsuit against the dangerous expansion of the global meat industry.“

At the centre of the dispute is JBS’ planned US$ 2.5 billion investment in industrial livestock production in Nigeria.[2] Civil society groups in Nigeria have raised urgent warnings that the aggressive expansion will threaten local food security, drive regional instability, and accelerate ecological degradation. There is no available evidence that JBS has conducted any impact assessments or community consultations in Nigeria, and local efforts to gather more information via Freedom of Information requests have reportedly been ignored.[3]

The escalation to the courts follows the refusal of JBS, the world’s largest meat company, to comply with a formal disclosure demand delivered by Greenpeace Netherlands in April. The environmental group is utilising new Dutch legislation, which grants parties with a legitimate interest the right to demand access to specific corporate data necessary to build litigation against Dutch companies.[4]

Greenpeace Netherlands’ lawyers allege that JBS’ historic business practices and future expansion plans are inconsistent with the company’s climate and biodiversity obligations and represent a breach of its Dutch duty of care, which requires companies to act in line with international human rights law.[5]

If the court rules in favor of Greenpeace Netherlands, it is entitled to seek the required information in the form of documents and from senior JBS figures under oath, raising the prospect of the Batista brothers being forced to testify in Dutch court. JBS reincorporated as a Dutch entity (JBS N.V.) last year to facilitate a dual listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

In April, JBS was forced to temporarily suspend its first annual general meeting since moving its headquarters to Amsterdam after it was disrupted by dozens of Greenpeace Netherlands activists. 

Last week, JBS scrapped two flagship commitments to reach Net Zero emissions by 2040 and eradicate deforestation from its supply chain. It also removed any explicit reference to Indigenous lands from all of its current policies. Greenpeace Netherlands is concerned this indicates JBS is seeking to expand unconstrained by the climate, nature and human rights impacts of its business.

Notes:

[1] The livestock sector is estimated to be responsible for 31% of global methane emissions (more than oil and gas operations). In comparison to CO2, methane is shorter lived (around 12 years) but has a much stronger ability to trap heat in the atmosphere over its lifetime: it has approximately 80 times more climate impact than CO2 when measured over 20 years. This means that changes in methane emissions have a more rapid effect on the climate than changes in CO2. See Greenpeace Netherlands letter to JBS dated 30 April 2026.

[2] JBS announcement

[3] Experts raise concerns over the risks of industrial animal farming (The Sun Nigeria) 

[4] Simplification and modernisation of Dutch evidence law (Fieldfisher)

[5] Greenpeace Netherlands petition to Dutch court available on request. Media briefing with further details on JBS expansion plans, including in Nigeria, available here.

Media Contacts:

Joe Evans, Agriculture Global Comms Lead at Greenpeace UK,  +44 7890 595387, jevans@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org