Government statisticians have endorsed a new measure of the size of national economies, tackling statistical quirks that led to the contribution of fossil fuels being overstated and that of renewables being under-counted.
At the UN Statistical Commission’s annual session in New York last month, all governments decided that net domestic product (NDP) – as opposed to gross domestic product (GDP) – “will be identified as the conceptually preferred measure of economic growth”. They agreed to try and implement these changes through their national statistics offices and central banks by 2029-2030.
One key difference, which could support climate action, is that NDP includes the depletion of non-renewable natural resources like coal, oil and gas as a cost of production, shrinking their value in the calculation.
Bram Edens, a statistician with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), explained that accounting for how reserves of fossil fuels are used up will reduce their value in the same way that the value of buildings or machinery falls due to the wear and tear they suffer over time.
Blow to prestige of petro-states
During a webinar to explain the change, the International Monetary Fund’s chief statistician Bert Kroese said that most countries NDPs are 10-20% lower than their GDPs.
The additional requirement to account for resources depletion, he noted, would reduce most countries’ NDPs by only a “relatively small” amount, but “will have a greater impact on countries which depend heavily on mining and mineral extraction” such as Norway, Russia and Saudi Arabia whose NDPs would shrink on paper by another 10-20%.
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Pushpam Kumar, an economics expert with the United Nations Environment Programme, told Climate Home that GDP figures overstate the benefits to the economy of having and extracting fossil fuels, and that the updated NDP measure would fix this “to some extent”.
With fossil fuels set to contribute less to statistics on economic growth and the size of an economy, Kumar said this would be a consideration for governments, giving them less incentive to explore for and extract fossil fuels on their territory.
However, it will be up to each government to reform their own systems – and some fossil fuel-reliant countries resisted the changes at the UN talks.
Resistance to changes
In its official feedback, the government of Kuwait – which gets two-thirds of its GDP from oil and gas – called for “flexibility in the application to ensure it adapts to the economic characteristics of each country, especially the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, such as the inclusion of the unconventional energy sector in the calculations”. While it did not specify what “unconventional energy” refers to, this is likely to mean renewables.
According to an official annotated document published by the UN, the government of Iran – which gets a third of its GDP from oil and gas – suggested watering down the gathering’s conclusions from “recommends” a shift to NDP to “invites” and adding caveats like “as appropriate”.
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Arguing in favour of the change, Pacific island nation Fiji said it would ensure that “national accounts better reflect contemporary economic realities and provide a stronger foundation for policy-making and economic analysis worldwide”.
The 600 government statisticians gathered in New York also agreed to explicitly include renewable energy resources for the first time in national accounts. “What we’re really trying to do is to value the renewable energy resource that is essentially being provided for free by nature – that is being exploited through the use of solar panels and wind turbines and so on,” the OECD’s Edens explained.
Hydro boost for Brazil and Canada
This is likely to boost – on paper – economies that get a lot of energy from solar, wind and hydropower. A 2021 World Bank report on the changing wealth of nations estimates that Brazil and Canada, for example, have hydro-electric assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. But, Edens noted, the new accounting approach will not boost the economies of countries with lots of sun and wind unless they have the solar panels and wind turbines to turn those resources into energy.
Another flaw in GDP, he said, is that “if you have a forest, you can boost your GDP by over-harvesting this forest but at some point, the forest will no longer be there”.
The changes introduced with NDP will address this by including the cost of depleting natural resources like forests or fish. This way “you send the better signal that the current level of economic growth cannot continue forever”, Edens explained.
Kumar noted that wear and tear of machinery cuts its value in national accounts but the destruction of natural capital – like forests, fisheries, water and clean air – has previously not lowered their value on paper.
Despite the shift, he warned that changes to statistical methods would not automatically influence government policies. “Accounting does not translate into policy until the analysts and decision-makers take note of that and change the course of action,” he said.
Nonetheless, all governments agreed to September 2024’s UN Pact for the Future, which included a commitment to develop “a framework on measures of progress on sustainable development to complement and go beyond [GDP]”.
Kumar said the reforms should go further and resources are needed to implement them. But, he added, “one thing is for sure: countries are showing interest. They have realised that this GDP alone will not do good for their country.”
The post Fossil fuel nations to see value of their economies shrink under new UN-agreed measure appeared first on Climate Home News.
Fossil fuel nations to see value of their economies shrink under new UN-agreed measure
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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