Originally published 2021-11-07.
Frankie the dinosaur is the star of a short film released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on 27 October 2021, days before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. In the video a computer-generated dinosaur strolls into the UN General Assembly hall in New York and tells world leaders to stop spending public money on fossil fuel subsidies. Its slogan was simple: "Don't choose extinction." The English voice belongs to actor Jack Black. Here is what the campaign said, the real numbers behind it and what happened next.
What happens in the Frankie video
The film opens like a normal session of the General Assembly until a velociraptor-like creature, clearly inspired by the Jurassic films, walks past a startled security guard and climbs onto the speaker's podium. Delegates gasp, then listen.
Frankie's argument rests on one joke that does a lot of work. Dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid they could do nothing about. Humans, the dinosaur points out, are paying for their own disaster. "At least we had an asteroid, what's your excuse?" Frankie asks. Paying billions every year to keep fossil fuels cheap, it says, is like dinosaurs funding giant meteors.
The speech ends on a hopeful note. Countries were spending heavily to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and Frankie calls that recovery a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild economies differently. The hall erupts into applause as the dinosaur leaves.
Several celebrities recorded the dinosaur's lines in other languages. Live Science named Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, known from Game of Thrones, alongside Jack Black, and the video was distributed in many language versions so it could travel across social media.
The real figure: 423 billion dollars a year
The video was not just a gag. It launched a UNDP campaign built around a report published the day before, on 26 October 2021. That analysis estimated that governments spend about 423 billion US dollars a year subsidising fossil fuels, money UNDP said could pay for COVID-19 vaccines for everyone on Earth.
A fossil fuel subsidy is any government policy that makes coal, oil or gas cheaper than it would otherwise be. That can mean direct payments to producers, tax breaks, or holding fuel and electricity prices below market cost for consumers. Many of these schemes were created for understandable reasons, such as protecting poorer households from price spikes. The problem, critics say, is that they encourage more fossil fuel use, cost public budgets a fortune and mostly benefit wealthier people who use the most energy.
Why estimates vary so much
You will see very different numbers in the news, and they are not necessarily contradicting each other. The UNDP figure counts direct, or explicit, support. The International Energy Agency estimated that consumption subsidies jumped to around 1 trillion dollars in 2022 when energy prices soared after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund uses a much wider definition that also counts the unpaid costs of air pollution and climate damage, and arrives at about 5.9 trillion dollars for 2020. Each figure answers a different question, so it is worth checking which one an article is using.
What climate scientists said about the idea
Experts generally welcomed the message but warned against treating subsidy reform as a silver bullet. Climatologist Michael Mann of Penn State University told Live Science that ending these subsidies is an important part of a full climate plan, but that the priority must be cutting emissions, alongside incentives for renewable energy and putting a price on carbon. As he put it: "We need them all."
That matches the wider research view. Removing subsidies can lower emissions and free up money, but if it is done suddenly it can push up living costs and spark protests, as several countries have seen when fuel prices rose overnight. Economists usually recommend phasing support out gradually and redirecting part of the savings to help low-income households directly.
What COP26 actually agreed
The summit ran from 31 October to 13 November 2021 and ended with the Glasgow Climate Pact. It was widely described as the first UN climate agreement to name fossil fuels directly, calling for countries to speed up efforts to phase down unabated coal power and phase out "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies. The coal wording was softened from "phase out" to "phase down" in the final hours, at the request of coal-dependent countries including India and China.
The word "inefficient" left plenty of room for interpretation, and UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa said many parties would have preferred a clearer statement on ending subsidies and coal. The idea itself was not new: G20 leaders first pledged to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies back in 2009, and progress has been slow ever since.
Early in the summit, more than 100 countries, including Brazil, also pledged to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. Forest pledges had been made before, so environmental groups said the real test would be enforcement.
Why a dinosaur? The thinking behind the campaign
Climate reports are full of large numbers that are hard to picture. A talking dinosaur is not. By using humour and a famous voice, UNDP aimed to reach people who would never read a policy paper on energy pricing, and to give them one clear, shareable idea: public money is still paying for the problem.
It helps to be clear about what the joke is and is not. The dinosaur comparison is, of course, not science. Dinosaurs did not cause their own extinction, and modern climate change is not expected to wipe out humanity in the way the asteroid ended the non-avian dinosaurs. The comparison works as a metaphor about choice and responsibility, not as a prediction.
Key takeaways
- Frankie was created by UNDP and released on 27 October 2021 to launch its "Don't Choose Extinction" campaign before COP26.
- The central figure, about 423 billion dollars a year in fossil fuel subsidies, came from a UNDP analysis; other bodies use wider definitions and report larger totals.
- COP26 did mention fossil fuel subsidies and coal for the first time, but in softened language.
- Most experts see subsidy reform as one useful tool among several, not a complete solution.
Years later, the video is still one of the most memorable pieces of UN climate communication, partly because it turned a dry budget issue into a question anyone can understand: why pay for something that harms you?
Sources: Live Science: Talking dinosaur urges UN not to choose extinction; Wikipedia: Fossil fuel subsidies; Wikipedia: Glasgow Climate Pact. Video by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
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