Exxon CEO Snarks About Other Oil Majors' Climate Targets As A "Beauty Competition"
In the pantheon of companies that have destroyed the climate, ExxonMobil has long sat on the throne. It’s spread disinformation for decades even as it knew the risks of its products, is the largest investor-owned source of emissions since 1980, and the third-biggest driver of ocean acidification since 1880. And on Thursday, it made clear that it intends to keep its crown.
Darren Woods, the company’s CEO, used its annual investor day to talk about how it plans to invest billions of dollars in exploration and, meanwhile, trash other oil majors for setting targets to limit their emissions. He called the recent push by European oil giants such as Repsol, BP, and Eni to lower their emissions as a “beauty match.” Which is a pretty weird way to talk about efforts to have a livable planet, but go off, king.
Look, you should treat any aspirational targets set by oil companies with a high degree of skepticism. Their whole business is centered around a product that pollutes the atmosphere, and it’s been spectacularly lucrative. Big Oil is still a multi-trillion dollar industry that wields enormous power and is backed by copious subsidies and the politicians it rewards with massive sums of money. I wouldn’t call the pledges part of a beauty pageant, more just an attempt to look the least ugly. But Exxon is out here stone-cold attempting to avoid anything that could look like aspiration, beauty or otherwise.
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Exxon’s decision to ignore setting a cap and continue expanding shows it doesn’t imagine a political reckoning is coming anytime soon in the U.S. But the financial pressure on it could force more serious change. The company has seen its stocks slide to a 15-year low, and its valuation has plummeted an astounding $315 billion in just 13 years (yes, with a b).
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https://earther.gizmodo.com/exxon-derides-oil-firms-efforts-to-not-burn-down-the-pl-1842155593