If you care about the planet, please make sure you sit down before you start reading this post about ExxonMobil.
So.
The CEO of ExxonMobil just said this in an interview: "We’ve waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets in terms of what we need, as a society, to start reducing emissions."
https://fortune.com/2024/02/27/exxon-ceo-darren-woods-interview-pay-the-price-for-net-zero/
Who's the most influential voice on climate change? Who's to blame for inaction on climate change?
According to the CEO of ExxonMobil, it's environmental activists.
No, really:
"Frankly, society, and the activist—the dominant voice in this discussion—has tried to exclude the industry that has the most capacity and the highest potential for helping with some of the technologies."
Oh, and the CEO of ExxonMobil also apparently thinks consumers are to blame for climate inaction:
"Today we have opportunities to make fuels with lower carbon, but people aren’t willing to spend the money to do that."
Gets better.
He thinks unnamed 'people who generate emissions' should pay for it. (Rather than, say, major transnational oil companies.)
"People who are generating the emissions need to be aware of [it] and pay the price. That’s ultimately how you solve the problem."
https://fortune.com/2024/02/27/exxon-ceo-darren-woods-interview-pay-the-price-for-net-zero/
Worth including a quick reminder here that Exxon-Mobil made a US$36 billion profit in 2023: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exxon-beats-estimates-ends-2023-with-36-billion-profit-2024-02-02/#:~:text=HOUSTON%2C%20Feb%202%20(Reuters),higher%20oil%20and%20gas%20production.
Not gross revenue.
Profit.
So, remind me again. Who knew about climate change before most of the public?
"Exxon was aware of climate change, as early as 1977, 11 years before it became a public issue... This knowledge did not prevent the company (now ExxonMobil and the world’s largest oil and gas company) from spending decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoting climate misinformation."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
And just who, exactly, stood in the way reducing emissions all these years?
"ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents...
"The new revelations are based on previously unreported documents subpoenaed by New York’s attorney general as part of an investigation into the company announced in 2015. They add to a slew of documents that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal lawsuits against big oil."
#oil #BigOil @fuck_cars #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #ClimateChange #environment #ExxonMobil #Exxon #business #economy #politics #capitalism #ClimateCrisis
You may want to add some information about all the subsidies the oil industry still gets, year on year, while the US government slashes subsidies for renewables: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-report-finds
The only way the oil industry can even remain viable, let alone competitive, is to prop it up with an unfair advantage in government money.
@voracitude I think the biggest subsidy of all is the hidden one.
Burning fossil fuels leads to more frequent and severe floods, droughts, bushfires, heatwaves, and hurricanes.
The costs of rebuilding and recovering from those disasters are a cost of using fossil fuels.
If the fossil fuel companies aren't paying that cost, they're receiving a subsidy. And it's already a massive one.
Also.
I didn't include it in the post above, but apparently the CEO of ExxonMobil is also totally against subsidies...
For climate action:
"The way that the government is incentivized and trying to catalyze investments in this space is through subsidies. Driving significant investments at a scale that even gets close to moving the needle is going to cost a lot of money.
...
"But I would tell you building a business on government subsidy is not a long-term sustainable strategy—we don’t support that."
https://fortune.com/2024/02/27/exxon-ceo-darren-woods-interview-pay-the-price-for-net-zero/
Externalisimg costs is classic strategy