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I don't think anything positive would be accomplished by taking all of the companies' money and arresting their executives. Arresting the executives won't do anything because they would just hire new executives. If you bankrupt the companies, other companies will emerge to take their place, so long as there is a demand for the product.
Induced Demand exists and fossil infrastructure keeps nominal cost down, while externalising fossil impact.
Big Fossil must pay, consumers must pay (those who can't switch must be helped) because climate costs will appear anyways and they must be paid to keep civilisation afloat eventually.
Fossil fuel that is too cheap is a regulatory issue of internalising true costs of burning fossil fuels.
The demand exists because there is machinery all around the world that was designed to run on fuels derived from fossil hydrocarbons. To eliminate the demand, all of that machinery must be replaced with alternatives that do not run on fossil fuels.
Some of the alternatives exist now and are available on the market today, although some are still prohibitively expensive for many, and not all of the newer machines have all the necessary supporting infrastructure. Much more needs to be done by governments to make non fossil fuel machinery accessible and affordable, and to rapidly build out the necessary infrastructure.
Some of the existing machinery does not yet have a non fossil fuel alternative available. For that machinery, fossil fuels are still necessary. Once again, governments must do more, to help speed up R&D on new technologies, and to make sure those technologies will be affordable and accessible once they are ready for market deployment, and, again, that all the necessary supporting infrastructure is in place.
And those companies, with the right laws on the books, would hopefully think twice about breaking said laws for fear of their executives going to jail.
Potential executives would think twice about joining companies that might be prone to being sent to jail.
This example always gets brought up, that people will just replace them, but they won't if we de-incentive it and continue to enforce it. You can't stop murder, but you can make it easier to catch murderers and place enough consequences that the average person doesn't feel inclined to commit it. Sure, then there's career criminals, there's people who would see that punishment and still go for it, but note that the number would be drastically reduced than if we just let them continue on unimpeded.
Lemmy refuses to understand that ignoring the climate change is the most democratically chosen policy on earth.
Everyone and their dog are driving places every day instead of cycling or taking a bus. And it's not because those options don't exist. It's because driving is convenient.
In most developing countries 70-80% of the population will be against gasoline engine being outright banned. And yet lemmy keeps thinking it's big oil that is the problem.
Delusional kids thinking they're communist.
If we spent as much on public transport as we do subsidising the oil-based status quo, public transport would be convenient too.
Vote for parties that would implement this. Convince your friends and relatives too. Otherwise, what are you talking about? People like cars. Between two candidates where one says "gas will be expensive but I'll let double the frequency of all buses" and the one saying "fuck buses, but gas prices will go down" which one do you think will win?