What To Expect In ExxonMobil's Climate Report - Self-Serving Bullshit, Loud Silences

[hatrack]

EDIT

1) Lip service to renewables
When I read ExxonMobil’s Energy and Carbon Summary last year, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about the sidebar touting the company’s role as a supplier of lubricants for wind turbines. ExxonMobil hypes its investment of more than $9 billion in lower-emission energy solutions since 2000. But that investment amounts to less than 2% of the company’s spending on oil and gas exploration and infrastructure during that timeframe. And every time I see an ad highlighting ExxonMobil’s research on algae biofuels, I can’t help but wonder which is higher: spending on the R&D, or spending on the ads? (I have similar questions about the ad campaign BP launched last week).

2) Trying to have it both ways on climate disinformation
Last year, ExxonMobil finally quit the anti-climate lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Yet unlike Shell, ExxonMobil did not explicitly state that it left the group because of its position on climate change. In fact, ExxonMobil’s annual charitable giving report revealed $1.5 million in 2017 contributions to think tanks and lobby groups that reject established climate science and oppose climate action, for a total of $36 million donated to such groups over the past 20 years.

ExxonMobil also tried to have its cake and eat it, too, with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed rollback of rules meant to limit the release of methane from oil and gas extraction. While getting credit for supporting the existing rules, the company simultaneously endorsed comments by the American Petroleum Institute, the trade group leading the drive to gut them. And like other major oil and gas companies we studied in our scorecard, ExxonMobil still subtly misrepresents climate science in its own communications (read more in this blog by my UCS colleague Brenda Ekwurzel).

3) Self-congratulation for self-serving actions
ExxonMobil made headlines with its pledge of $1 million to a lobbying campaign for a federal carbon tax. (See above to compare this commitment with the company’s spending on fossil fuel extraction or climate deception.) This particular carbon tax plan looks like a sweet deal for ExxonMobil. Sure, it includes a relatively high starting price of $40 per ton, but it would also roll back the EPA Clean Power Plan and enable the fossil fuel companies to escape liability for climate damages.

EDIT

https://blog.ucsusa.org/kathy-mulvey/four-things-to-expect-in-exxonmobils-2019-climate-risk-report

[2naSalit]

1. Same okl BS, as usual...nt