Exxon announce on Tuesday it would set a destination to be nett zero by 2050 , thus proving crude oil companies are just like you and me : prostrate to peer pressure and uncoerced to falsify a few numbers to seem good . Unfortunately , Exxon ’s fudged numbers pool hold a band more sway over the fate of the planet than my judiciary press personal record .
Exxon ’s announcement come after years of the company getting utterly hammered for being the bad investor - own oil company when it comes to doing something , anything about clime modification . Just last year , the company gotwrecked by its own shareholdersin aclimate - related revolt . With the net zero pledge , Exxon join the ranks of Chevron , BP , and Shell in profess to have a mood plan in line with a habitable planet . ( Let ’s also pause to express mirth for a minute at how Exxon CEO Darren Woods said BP and Shell wereengaging in a “ beauty match”when they set final zero goals in 2020 . Welcome to the pageantry , Darren . )
Every climate pledge by oil company isbasically slimy , at least by the metrics that count like keeping carbon paper befoulment out of the air and meander down new fossil oil geographic expedition . TheExxon net zero pledgeis particularly weasely , though , for a few reason .
The sun sets over an Exxon oil refinery.Photo: Greg Smith/Corbis (Getty Images)
The first is what it actually track . The company said its design is to get Scope 1 and compass 2 emissions to net zero . For those not initiated in Big Oilese , those are the emissions from excerpt , refining , and shipping fossil fuels . They answer for forjust 20 % of Exxon ’s total expelling . The Leo ’s share of emissions tied to Exxon ’s business enterprise — cognize as Scope 3 emissions — come from burn the oil and gas the company ships to market .
Exxon ’s pledge to have its operations pass on net zero by 2050 is like allege you ’ll stop smoking while still buy cartons of cigarette and handing them out to school shaver . Sure , your cancer risk may be a lot lower but it ’s not on the button a public health winner . Among the ways that Exxon will reduce emissions using “ lower - emission fuel ” to dig up more fogey fuels , so it ’s even sneaking a coffin nail on the ardour escape every now and then itself .
The company also said it would plow $ 15 billion into “ lower - emission initiatives ” over the next five yr . Obviously , Exxon is n’t going to zero out its expelling in five geezerhood and “ lower ” could conceivably be a startle . The company write that a “ pregnant share ” of that money will go into “ scaling up carbon capture and memory , hydrogen and biofuels . ” That ’s nice , but each of these engineering science has so far provenborderline uselessat lowering emissions — and in some cases , could actuallylead to high emissions . What they are utile for , though , is allow Exxon to keep digging up oil and gas pedal while foretell that ’s it ’s trying really heavy to calculate out how to fasten this whole vast generator of carbon pollution thing . 🥺 🥺 🥺 Or as Woods put it in the jam release announce the big programme , “ We will make shareholder note value by adjust investment between our existing down in the mouth - price portfolio and new miserable - emanation business opportunities to match the gait of the push transition . ”
The society also spill the beans a lot about lour carbon intensity level along the way . That basically mean its operation will become more efficient at poke up oil and gas . This is a very commodious metric for Exxon because it can point to emitting less carbon per barrel of oil extracted , even as it extracts more oil .
None of this even gets into how shadowy last zero goal actually are in the first place . company are announce them like they ’re buy the farm out of expressive style , but there ’s no accepted metric function for how to get there . Could Exxon just say screw it , grease one’s palms a caboodle ofquestionable carbon paper offsets , and say it made it to net zero even earlier than anticipated ? utterly ! Would that be regretful for the climate ? My friends , it would !
Look , it ’s very nice Exxon and other oil companies are putting out these all-inclusive plans . But it also show the utter futility of allowing corporate actors to set the climate order of business . There ’s no answerability and very little care paid to the aperient at mitt orindependent sciencethat shows we need toend new fossil fuel geographic expedition this yearor risk missing out on the 1.5 - degree - Anders Celsius ( 2.7 - degree - Fahrenheit ) quarry in the Paris Agreement . What ’s demand is a rich , globose responseled by governmentswith theircitizens ’ undecomposed interests in mindrather than corporation looking to maximize shareholder time value .
“ Sound government policies are needed to speed the deployment of key technologies at the pace and scale expect to support a last - zero future , ” Exxon write in its net zero roadmap .
On that , I consider we can all agree , even if Exxon may have a somewhat unlike idea ofwhat those “ intelligent ” policy looklike thannearly everyone else .
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