For all the focus being placed on the role that fossil fuels play in the hastening of climate change, major oil and gas companies apparently have little intention of taking concrete action to transition away from oil and gas recovery and move towards clean energy options, according to a recent report compiled by representatives of the Democratic Party on the United States Oversight Committee.
The report contained in a story headlined “Oil companies could doom global efforts around climate change, House committee finds,” and published by NBC News, says that some of the world’s high profile oil majors have “little intention of taking concrete actions to transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy solutions despite their public efforts to be seen as working to address climate change.”
The House Committee, according to the NBC news report, named Shell, Chevron, BP and the American Petroleum Institute as entities that “all made major investments in projects” that would “protect and entrench the use of fossil fuels, long past the timeline scientists say would be safe to prevent catastrophic climate change” despite making climate pledges.
Strongly implying that some oil majors had developed a cynical approach to the role that fossil fuels play in climate change, the report quotes a Democratic member of the House Committee as saying that the named oil companies are “basically saying, we’re going to increase production, we’re going to increase emissions, but we’re also going to be able to claim being this clean tech company, this green company, because we can take some symbolic actions that make it look like we’re in the climate fight,” a comment attributed to Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a member of the committee.
“The cynicism was breathtaking, and unfortunately, it was quite successful, a successful PR strategy,” the House Committee Member is quoted as saying.
The news alludes to “internal documents” which it said had been released to the media house and which it says contained forecasts by oil companies reflecting “sizable returns on their fossil fuel investments.” According to the NBC report “one internal document from Chevron touts up to a $200 billion return over the next 40 years” following its “up-scaling oil production off the coast of Australia.”
The committee’s Democratic members all signed on to the report, but no Republicans reportedly did so.
Earlier this year, Carbon Brief, a United Kingdom-based website which monitors developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy, had named Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell, over the past decade as being among those companies that are “failing to back their words and pledges on climate change with genuine action and investment.” a new study says. The Carbon Brief study is reported as saying while these companies were making pledges to cut emissions such a transition has not been occurring.
The US Democratic House Committee said in its report that the big oil companies had avoided accountability and obstructed the committee’s investigation, which was originally launched in September 2021. It also said that the “internal documents’ demonstrated “how the fossil fuel industry ‘green-washed’ its public image with promises and actions that oil and gas executives knew would not meaningfully reduce emissions, even as the industry moved aggressively to lock in continued fossil fuel production for decades to come — actions that could doom global efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change,” the Committee wrote in its report.
