Exxon’s ongoing climate denial
Oil and gas conglomerate Exxon Mobil could be a key player in global efforts to combat the climate crisis — if only governments would remove burdensome regulations and stop wasting money on inefficient clean energy incentives.
Sound contradictory? It is.
Nevertheless, that was the message shared by Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods on Monday in Beverly Hills.
As I watched a livestream of the Milken Institute Global Conference, I was frustrated but not surprised to hear Woods imply that emerging technologies such as carbon capture and green hydrogen — on which Exxon and other oil giants are spending a tiny fraction of their cash — will be the main drivers of climate progress. We need those technologies for sure. But solar panels, wind turbines and batteries are cheap enough and reliable enough to get us most of the way to 100% clean energy, scientists say.
Woods, however, said hardly anything about solar and wind power, instead calling on the federal government to ease permitting regulations to make it easier for companies to build large-scale carbon capture and green hydrogen infrastructure.
“Permitting becomes significant bottleneck to advancing those projects,” Woods said.
He’s not entirely wrong. But he’s not telling the whole story.
I also shook my head in amazement as Woods suggested that a major barrier to slashing carbon pollution is that the world lacks “a system for accounting for carbon.” Until we can better calculate the costs and benefits of reducing emissions across different sectors of the economy, he said, we’ll continue to spend too much money on some climate programs and not enough on others — wasting taxpayer dollars in some places while missing lowhanging fruit in others.
As an example, he implied that President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act allocates too much money for electric vehicle subsidies — despite the fact that cars, trucks and other forms of transportation are America’s largest source of climate pollution.
“You want to make sure you have the tools available to prioritize the most effective steps first,” Woods said. “That’s the point of a carbon accounting system.”
Let’s set aside the fact that Exxon is a member of several trade groups that opposed Senate Bill 253 — the landmark measure approved by California lawmakers last year requiring major companies such as Exxon to publicly disclose their carbon emissions.
The deeper problem with Woods’ argument is that “prioritizing the most effective steps first” is a recipe for disaster.
Earth just experienced its 11th consecutive record hot month. Heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods — all of them are deadlier and more destructive than they were a few years ago. We shouldn’t ignore energy costs and smart use of taxpayer dollars. But in the absence of a livable climate, nothing else matters. With scientists telling us we need to cut carbon pollution more than 40% in the next six years, we don’t have time to waste prioritizing the most effective steps. We need to move on all fronts, ASAP.
And how did we get to this crucial point in human history?
In large part because Exxon and other fossil fuel profiteers waged phenomenally successful, decadeslong political campaigns of climate change denial and delay. It’s a horrific story that my L.A. Times colleague Susanne Rust helped expose in 2015.
In some ways, it’s a story that continues today.
Just last week, House Democrats released internal documents produced by a long-running investigation into the oil industry. In one document, an Exxon official expresses the view that the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord are not realistic — despite the company publicly endorsing the accord.
Another document shows the same Exxon official recommending to a fossil fuel industry group that it delete all references to the Paris accord, writing that those references “could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris Agreement goals.”
So, yeah, I’m skeptical when Woods starts off by saying, “Our view is there’s a need to do more math in this space.”
Fortunately, Woods shared the stage with Biden’s clean energy advisor, John Podesta. Dealing with climate change, Podesta said, is “not an accounting problem.”
“We’re seeing people drowning in Brazil from flash flooding. Extreme weather across the United States. This is going to get worse and worse as the temperature heats up,” Podesta said. “So the question is, what’s the speed and scale with which we’re moving to try to move from fossil fuels, which have powered our economy for decades, and we’re not getting rid of tomorrow?
“Companies like Darren’s can be part of the solution. My beef with him is I just think he’s not going fast enough.”
Podesta also highlighted the rapid pace of solar energy growth and called out Exxon for not investing more in renewables.
“I want them to spend more,” he said.
By the end of the Milken Institute discussion, it was clear why Exxon hasn’t spent more on climatefriendly power.
Oil and gas continue to be the company’s most reliable profit centers — a fact made clear by Exxon’s $60-billion acquisition of Texas oil and gas producer Pioneer Natural Resources, which was cleared by federal officials last week. The purchase will greatly expand Exxon’s ability to drill for fossil fuels in the Permian Basin region of eastern New Mexico and western Texas.
Woods made the case that the purchase will be good not only for “the economy” (which ignores the fact that the climate crisis is terrible for the economy) and for “consumers” (which ignores the fact that the climate crisis is terrible for human beings).
He also claimed Exxon’s fracking operations “will be good for the environment as well.” That head-scratching statement is based on the company’s plans to power its facilities with clean energy and limit heat-trapping methane releases — useful but still totally inadequate steps that ignore all the pollution unleashed when the oil is later burned in cars and trucks.
The best I can say for Woods is that he wasn’t shy about acknowledging who pays his salary.
“As a business, we’ve got to understand ... what are the returns for our shareholders,” he said.
Love modern capitalism or hate it, it’s what we’ve got. Averting climate catastrophe will necessitate leveraging the systems we’re stuck with — pushing politicians to regulate the hell out of companies like Exxon, but also holding our noses and collaborating with some of those companies, as technology and economics and politics require, to claw our way across the finish line.
This column is the latest edition of Boiling Point, an email newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. For more climate and environment news, follow @Sammy_Roth on X.