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Scientists all over the world agree that if we’re going to keep away from the worst-case scenarios from climate change, the planet wants to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions no later than 2050. The percentages of that really occurring don’t look great. And Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, thinks he is aware of whom guilty: you.
Saying that it’s not on Large Oil to deal with local weather change is gaslighting at its finest.
That’s proper, the chief of the most important oil and fuel company in the US — and the largest on the planet that isn’t state-owned — thinks that “people who are generating the emissions need to be aware of [it],” based on a recent interview he gave on Fortune’s “Leadership Next” podcast. You would possibly assume that Exxon — the third-largest company on the Fortune 500, with $36 billion in profits final 12 months alone — can and may shoulder the prices, however its CEO says that buyers ought to “pay the price.” Saying that it’s not on Large Oil to deal with local weather change is gaslighting at its finest.
In equity to Woods, he didn’t place the blame solely on customers. “The dirty secret nobody talks about is how much all this is going to cost and who’s willing to pay for it,” Woods stated. “If you look at the policies [governments] are putting out, the cost is very implicit. It’s not an explicit cost.”
As an alternative, Woods stated, there needs to be extra transparency about what the prices of rolling again local weather change can be and what the distribution of these prices will seem like:
“People can’t afford it, and governments around the world rightly know that their constituents will have real concerns,” he went on. “So we’ve got to find a way to get the cost down to grow the utility of the solution, and make it more available and more affordable so that you can begin the [clean energy] transition.”
Society just isn't presently on that path to 2050, in Woods’ view. “The policies that are being put in place aren’t aggressive enough, and don’t incentivize the right kind of actions to be successful.”
There’s a touch of fact in his statements about client demand’s position within the shift to web zero emissions. People, specifically, might want to change their preferences, together with relating to housing density and transportation, if there’s an opportunity of creating the transition. One 2019 report from 94 of the world’s largest cities discovered that their residents’ consumption fueled 10% of all global greenhouse gases. The report’s authors predicted that quantity would solely develop with out lively efforts to cut back consumption.
If pressed, Woods would doubtless additionally level out that Exxon has stated it will spend $17 billion between 2023 and 2027 on “lower emissions initiatives.” However although which will sound like some huge cash, it’s at most 17% of the corporate’s complete deliberate investments over these years. And, once more, $17 billion is lower than half of the entire earnings that Exxon made final 12 months alone.
Furthermore, when you think about the total scope of the injury that the fossil gasoline trade — and Exxon particularly — have brought about, these efforts to make amends fall drastically brief. For instance, the corporate obtained large press final month for leaving the Independent Petroleum Association of America, an trade commerce group, for not being aligned with the corporate’s local weather values. “IPAA does not have any climate-related policy principles, nor has it supported emission-reduction policies. It has also advocated against strong methane regulations,” Exxon stated in a 2022 climate lobbying review. However as the Union for Concerned Scientists’ Laura Peterson identified, “many of the associations ExxonMobil retains membership in are actively obstructing climate progress.”
Let’s not overlook Exxon’s position in spreading local weather denialism within the first place.
Woods in his interview additionally pooh-poohed the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate subsidies since “significant investments at a scale that even gets close to moving the needle is going to cost a lot of money,” including that “building a business on government subsidy is not a long-term sustainable strategy — we don’t support that.” However this is identical firm that lobbied heavily against provisions within the proposed Build Back Better legislation that will have raised company taxes to pay for numerous initiatives, together with elevated local weather mitigation efforts. If Woods have been severe, the cash Exxon spends on lobbying against new climate policies annually might be redirected in a single day to strain Republicans who're busy hammering climate proposals as being anti-American.
And let’s not overlook Exxon’s position in spreading climate denialism within the first place. The corporate knew of the risks of local weather change as far back as the 1970s. The Wall Road Journal reported final 12 months that even after lastly admitting that fossil fuels contribute to local weather change in 2006, the company’s executives “attempted to push back against the notion that humans needed to curtail oil and gas use to help the planet — despite the company’s public statements that action was needed.” That was a continuation of earlier insurance policies through which Exxon “became the architect of a highly effective strategy of climate change denial that succeeded for decades in politicizing climate policy and delaying meaningful action to cut heat-trapping pollution,” as NPR put it.
I’m glad that Woods is not less than mouthing the phrases that people clearly want to hear so far as countering local weather change goes. However to say that Large Oil shouldn’t bear the brunt of these prices reduces his pledges to greenwashing at finest. And for a man whose total compensation hit $35.9 million final 12 months, to say that there’s simply not sufficient cash within the trade to pay for growth of inexperienced know-how sounds awfully wealthy.
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