Exxon’s disinformation about fossil fuels will leave future generations with oil and gas nobody will buy

The oil/gas sector is notorious for peddling lies. Next week Darren Woods, ExxonMobil’s Chief Executive Officer, must appear before the US Congress Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment, to answer questions about Exxon and its disinformation about fossil fuels and global warming. In 1982 Exxon scientists privately predicted that burning fossil fuels would raise the temperature of the earth. In public Exxon denied it. Exxon’s lobbyist Keith McCoy recently admitted that Exxon relied on “shadow groups” to fight government efforts to address climate change. Mr. Woods will be joined by other oil industry executives. Given the blatant documented dishonesty in the oil sector, Guyanese people are increasingly skeptical of pro-oil statements.

Since ‘first oil’ the cost of living has gone up. The majority of people in Guyana are poor. Oil is making them poorer, not richer. GAWU has complained that the oil sector is ill-treating Guyanese workers and hiring foreigners for jobs that Guyanese can do. More than 6 years after the discovery of oil and the promises of vast wealth, people are still hoping for a decent job. In contrast Darren Woods, the CEO of ExxonMobil earned US$15.6M (roughly G$3.2bn) last year. A letter under the name of Arjoon Singh was recently published in Stabroek News. It set out the standard oil industry line about the world needing oil. The letter did not put forward any evidence to rebut the economic and financial analyses of the IMF, the World Bank, the IADB, the International Energy Agency, economists Nick Stern and Joseph Stieglitz, Black Rock, the World Economic Forum and other staunch capitalists, investors and oil industry experts who say that renewable energy is replacing fossil fuels and who warn that stranded fossil fuel assets threaten a country’s economy.

The letter had several mistakes. A Fair Deal for Guyana – A Fair Deal for the Planet is not my group. The website clearly states that it is, ‘A People’s Movement to make Gov’t of Guyana & Big Oil obey the law and protect the environment for present and future generations.’ Guyanese people are not fools. Everybody knows that the government and the oil companies are subject to the rule of law. People also know that the Constitution (Article 149J) requires the State to protect the environment for present and future generations.

Fair Deal does not say leave the oil in the ground. Its website says, “We believe that the current oil deal is bad for Guyana.” If there is anybody in Guyana who thinks that Guyana got a good deal, let them say so loud and clear. In December 2018, the then Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo said of the APNU AFC Coalition, “Our incompetent Government trudged in there unprepared and stuck us with a contract that would harm us for decades into the future. They sold our patrimony…” A deal that sold our patrimony and would harm Guyana for decades, does not magically become a good deal because there is a different government. Even with ‘our patrimony’ Exxon is in financial trouble. It owes a lot of money. The Coalition United for a Responsible Exxon (CURE) consists of 145 institutional investors representing about US$2.4trillion in assets. CURE says that “Exxon’s current direction is premised on outdated assumptions about high oil prices, demand, and margins that are incompatible with the reality of climate change and the inevitable transition to renewable energy sources.” CURE says that Exxon’s failure to transition “puts at risk shareholders’ dividend, as well as the Company and the planet’s survival.” If the Guyana government continues its desperate out of date attempts to do oil and gas, the Guyanese people and future generations will be left with oil and gas that nobody wants to buy, oil and gas wells that cost billions of American dollars to shut down safely, and a gas plant without gas.