[Energy firms have made record profits by increasing production of
oil and gas, far from their promises of rolling back emissions]
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BIG OIL QUIETLY WALKS BACK ON CLIMATE PLEDGES AS GLOBAL HEAT RECORDS
TUMBLE  
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Dharna Noor
July 16, 2023
The Guardian
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_ Energy firms have made record profits by increasing production of
oil and gas, far from their promises of rolling back emissions _

Pictured is out-of-control wildfires in Quebec Province. Amid
record-shattering warmth this February, BP scaled back an earlier goal
of lowering its emissions. , Photo courtesy: Charlie Papatie

 

It was probably [[link removed]] the Earth’s hottest week
in history earlier this month, following the warmest June on record,
and top scientists agree that the planet will get even hotter unless
we phase out fossil fuels.

Yet leading energy companies are intent on pushing the world in the
opposite direction, expanding fossil fuel production and insisting
that there is no alternative. It is evidence that they are motivated
not by record warming, but by record profits, experts say.

“The fossil fuel industry has massively profited from selling a
dangerous product and now innocent people and governments across the
globe are paying the price for their recklessness,” Naomi Oreskes, a
history of science professor at Harvard University who studies the oil
industry, said.

Oil majors have, over the past several years, rolled out pledges to
decrease oil and gas production and slash their emissions, citing
concerns about the climate crisis. But more recently, many have walked
those plans back.

Amid record-shattering warmth
[[link removed]] this
February, BP scaled back an earlier goal of lowering its emissions by
35% by 2030, saying it will aim for a 20 to 30% cut instead.
ExxonMobil quietly withdrew funding
[[link removed]] for
a heavily publicized effort to use algae to create low-carbon fuel.
And Shell announced
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it would not increase its investments in renewable energy this year,
despite earlier promises to dramatically slash
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emissions.

Climate-fueled
[[link removed]] extreme
weather
[[link removed]] persisted
[[link removed]] through
spring and summer. But fossil fuel companies have only doubled down on
their oil- and gas-filled business models. Shell promised to cut oil
production by 20% by 2030, but then this year said it already met that
goal by selling off
[[link removed].] some
operations to another oil company –thereby not reducing emissions in
the atmosphere. BP has also expanded
[[link removed]] gas
drilling. And Exxon’s CEO, Darren Woods, told
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industry conference last month that his company plans to double the
amount of oil produced from its US shale holdings within the next five
years.

[A man carries a suitcase to higher ground, wading through the
overflowed Winooski River in Vermont.]

A man carries a suitcase to higher ground, wading through the
overflowed Winooski River in Vermont. Photograph: John Lazenby/Alamy
Stock Photo/Alamy Live News.

A Shell spokesperson said the company believes “society needs to
take action on climate change”, and said that the company had made
“no fundamental change” to its climate pledges and was making
progress toward those goals.

“It remains our view that global energy demand will continue to grow
and be met by different types of energy – including oil and gas,”
he said. “In that scenario, a balanced energy transition plays well
into our portfolio – one that delivers more value, with less
emissions by focusing on performance, discipline and
simplification.”

But Dan Cohn, global energy transition researcher at the Institute for
Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said that the oil
industry’s climate plans should not be taken at “face value”.

“They have left no doubt that their pledges were deployed for
cynical political purposes, only to be ditched when they no longer
suited the industry’s strategic position,” he said.

That strategic position was to avoid being governed, said Timmons
Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University.

“The climate commitments … were almost certainly made to give the
impression that they don’t need to be regulated because their
voluntary pledges are adequate,” he said.

He said climate pledges became popular while fossil fuels were
becoming less profitable years ago, but since the Russian invasion of
Ukraine, gas prices have risen – in fact, fossil fuel companies saw
record profits last year.

The fossil fuel industry has massively profited from selling a
dangerous product and now innocent people and governments across the
globe are paying the price for their recklessness

Naomi Oreskes

“It became clear that they’re motivated by profits,” said
Roberts, adding that the drive is unsurprising, since CEOs of public
companies can be removed if they do not maximize profit growth.

Fossil fuel executives sometimes suggest that fossil fuel expansion is
necessary. Last Thursday – just after Earth broke an unofficial
record for its hottest day ever for the third day in a row – the
TotalEnergies CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, told
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that his company will continue to pour the majority of its investments
into fossil fuels.

“Today, our society requires oil and gas,” he said. “There is no
way to think that overnight we can just eliminate all that.”

Pouyanne is not alone. In an interview published the same day, Wael
Sawan, CEO of Shell, said curbing oil and gas production would be
“dangerous and irresponsible”.

“The reality is, the energy system of today continues to desperately
need oil and gas,” Sawan told
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“And before we are able to let go of that, we need to make sure that
we have developed the energy systems of the future – and we are not
yet, collectively, moving at the pace [required for] that to
happen.”

But though “nobody expects fossil fuel demand to disappear
overnight”, Cohn said, there is ample evidence
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we can transition away from them over the coming years – and indeed,
that we must if we are to secure a livable climate.

[Children and adults cool off in a fountain in a lower Manhattan park
in New York City.]

Children and adults cool off in a fountain in a lower Manhattan park
in New York City. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Roberts said these comments exemplify the “discourses of climate
delay” that the fossil fuel industry employs to intentionally push
off climate action and that were documented in a 2020 study on the
topic
[[link removed]] which
he co-authored. In preparing their climate plans, oil companies relied
heavily on the discourse of “fossil fuel solutionism” – or
claiming they had the solutions to slow warming. But now that the
transition seems less immediately profitable, they are employing other
tactics, such as “change is impossible”, which the 2020 paper
defines as “a discourse that reifies the current state of things and
denies the ability of societies to organize large socio-economic
transformations”.

No matter what strategy they employ at any given time, the industry
has “done everything they can to block climate action and keep us
dependent on their products”, said Oreskes.

To foster a real energy transition, said Roberts, leaders must stop
believing that energy companies will voluntarily change their business
models. He likened politicians’ behavior to the gag in the Peanuts
comic, wherein Charlie Brown repeatedly attempts to kick a football
held up by Lucy, even though she always pulls it away and lets him
fall over.

“The oil companies keep holding up the football,” he said. “Are
we gonna ask them hold it again for us? I don’t think we should.”

_Dharna Noor is a fossil fuels and climate reporter at Guardian US.
Twitter @dharnanoor [[link removed]]_

* Climate Change
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* Fossil Fuel Corportations
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* corporate profits
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* broken promises
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