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This is not something we expected to write: President-elect Donald Trump should listen to an oil company CEO on climate change.
In recent comments, Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, has urged the next president not to overturn all of the Biden administration’s climate policies. He also urged Trump not to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate, which Trump did during his previous term in the White House.
Woods, one of the only energy company executives to attend COP29, United Nations global climate negotiations currently happening in Azerbaijan, repeatedly noted that delaying action to reduce greenhouse emissions would only make it harder to address the challenges brought by our changing climate.
“I don’t think the challenge or the need to address global emissions is going to go away,” Woods told Politico. “Anything that happens in the short term would just make the longer term that much more challenging.”
He also stressed the need for consistency, which from a business perspective is helpful to plan long-term investments and strategy.
“I’ve been advising that we have some level of consistency,” Woods said in his interview with Politico. “One of the challenges with this polarized political environment we find ourselves in is the impact of policy switching back and forth as political cycles occur and elections happen and administrations change. That’s not good for the economy.”
It’s also not good for the environment, or the humans who live in it. Heatwaves, wildfires, floods and severe storms are becoming more frequent and severe as the planet warms. Many more people will suffer from malnutrition and illnesses as a result and billions of dollars will be spent on the consequences, according to the World Health Organization.
Transitioning away from fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, which add heat-trapping greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, is part of state, national and global efforts to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
Agreements like the Paris Agreement attempt to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Such agreements are controversial because of the uneven efforts by nations to reduce emissions while also growing their economies. For example, Trump has long complained that the U.S. would be punished by working to meet global emission reduction standards, while China is not doing enough to reduce its emissions.
During his first term as president, Trump pulled the U.S. from the Paris agreement. President Joe Biden returned the U.S. to the agreement and its goals, which helped spur growth in renewable energy development, often done by traditional energy companies like Exxon Mobil. Trump has said he would again remove the U.S. from the international agreement.
“A second U.S. exit from the Paris climate agreement would have profound implications for the country’s efforts to reduce its own emissions and for global efforts to combat climate change,” an Exxon Mobil spokesperson said in a statement to Newsweek.
“We advocate for policy that accounts for security, affordability, reliability and environmental stewardship – not drastic changes that could hinder the progress being made today,” the spokesperson added.
Of course, Exxon Mobil has self-serving reasons for this position. Although the company still drills for and sells huge amounts of oil and gas, it has heavily invested in low-carbon energy alternatives, including hydrogen and biofuels, as well as carbon capture. The company’s website touts the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which made significant federal investments in renewable energy and other carbon emission reduction efforts.
Woods also discounted Trump’s pledge to expand oil and gas production in the U.S. Oil production is at a historic high in the U.S. and there is no current demand for more production. In addition, Trump’s pledge to reduce prices and to increase production are in conflict. If oil and gas prices drop, there is less financial incentive for companies to increase production, experts say.
As with many of his campaign promises, Trump’s pledge to reverse course on climate policies is poorly thought out and would have lots of negative consequences. Although Exxon Mobil is not the best messenger, and has self-serving interests, Trump should listen to Woods, an energy expert, when it comes to energy and climate policy.
