Oil executives enjoying massive profits derided efforts to transition away from the fossil fuels pushing the climate crisis to record-smashing levels as “visibly failing” and a “fantasy” at the CERAWeek conference in Houston. That derision from the head of Saudi Aramco Amin Nasser and other leaders of an industry that has spent billions obfuscating and denying the harm done by its products, unsurprisingly drew the ire of climate advocates.
“They work night and day to torpedo a transition to renewable energy and then have the audacity to critique the slowness of the transition itself,” Jeff Ordower, North America director at 350.org, said in a statement. “CERAWeek should highlight a global vision toward a clean and equitable future, and instead, we get talking points from the 1970s.” The world’s biggest oil and gas companies are indeed failing to align their business practices with what would be necessary to limit global warming to 1.5°C, the goal laid out in the Paris Agreement, according to a Carbon Tracker analysis of the world’s 25 biggest oil and gas companies released Wednesday.
Major oil companies pulled down record profits last year, and CEOs like Exxon’s Darren Woods sought to blame consumers for not reducing demand. “It’s no surprise to see misleading claims like this coming at CERAWeek, because fossil fuel companies are the biggest cause of the climate crisis, and their continued political influence is the biggest obstacle to solving it,” Oil Change International’s David Tong told CNBC. “Oil and gas companies are deliberately slowing and blocking a rapid fossil fuel phase-out with the types of dangerous distractions they are peddling this week in Houston.” (CERAWeek: CNBC, Washington Post $, New York Times $, The Guardian; Paris scorecard: E&E $, S&P Global, AFP)