![]() ![]() In an interview published the same day, Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell, said curbing oil and gas production would be “dangerous and irresponsible”. “There is no way to think that overnight we can just eliminate all that.” “Today, our society requires oil and gas,” he said. 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 CNBC that his company will continue to pour the majority of its investments into fossil fuels. ![]() “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.įossil fuel executives sometimes suggest that fossil fuel expansion is necessary. 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 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 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. That strategic position was to avoid being governed, said Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University. “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. “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.”īut 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”. “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. Photograph: John Lazenby/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Live News.Ī 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. And Exxon’s CEO, Darren Woods, told an 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.Ī man carries a suitcase to higher ground, wading through the overflowed Winooski River in Vermont. Shell promised to cut oil production by 20% by 2030, but then this year said it already met that goal by selling off some operations to another oil company –thereby not reducing emissions in the atmosphere. But fossil fuel companies have only doubled down on their oil- and gas-filled business models. And Shell announced that it would not increase its investments in renewable energy this year, despite earlier promises to dramatically slash its emissions.Ĭlimate-fueled extreme weather persisted through spring and summer. ExxonMobil quietly withdrew funding for a heavily publicized effort to use algae to create low-carbon fuel. But more recently, many have walked those plans back.Īmid record-shattering warmth 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. 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. ![]() “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. ![]() It is evidence that they are motivated not by record warming, but by record profits, experts say. 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. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |