Utterly deplorable, despicable, and criminal:
Oil and gas executives, in a celebratory mood Monday as they kicked off an annual energy summit, showed just how quickly they are rolling back their support for a rapid transition from carbon fuels to cleaner power.
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With President Donald Trump in the White House, they cheered a reset they say is overdue after living through a years-long regulatory and corporate push toward green energy.
“We can all feel the winds of history in the sails of our businesses again,” Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, said of the vibe at this year’s S&P Global CERAWeek conference. The push for a rapid energy transition to clean power, he said, “was doomed to fail.”
At breakfast presentations, corporate-sponsored receptions and in carefully crafted messages for investors, executives at this year’s Houston meeting repeated administration talking points. They applauded as Trump’s energy secretary ripped into climate goals. And they promoted plans to build a lot more fossil-fuel infrastructure, arguing that the quest for cleaner energy that Joe Biden made a central element of his presidency needs to be supplanted by a recognition that petro fuels are essential to satisfy the United States’ surging demand for power.
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright seized on these developments in what amounted to a call to arms against climate-focused energy policy.
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“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that have imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright vowed, in an address that drew enthusiastic applause and even some hoots.
Wright said at the conference that the administration had just approved another permit for infrastructure to ship U.S. liquefied natural gas abroad, much to the dismay of climate activists who warn the facilities lock in massive amounts of emissions for decades. In this case, a floating terminal that Delfin LNG is building off the coast of Louisiana has been authorized by the Energy Department to export 1.8 billion cubic feet of gas per day.
It all signaled an industry agenda that has changed starkly since the November election. The firms welcomed a return to their old playbook of drilling and building fossil-fuel infrastructure to meet the energy needs of the artificial-intelligence industry and a boom in manufacturing.
The shift jeopardizes many of these companies’ own goals for eliminating climate pollution. Only 8 percent of energy companies are on track to cancel out their emissions by 2050, a common industry target, according to the consulting firm Accenture.
Days before the Houston conference, BP, once at the forefront of the energy transition, told investors that its “optimism for a fast transition was misplaced,” as it said it would shift billions of dollars in planned investment away from clean energy and into fossil fuels.
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Chevron, a champion of the goals in the Paris climate agreement, welcomed the Trump energy agenda, even as he withdraws the United States from that pact.
“We’re seeing some reality come back into the conversation,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in Houston on Monday. “We’ve got really well-qualified people in the Trump administration. … I think the conversation is going to reset to where it always should have been.”
Oil and gas executives, in a celebratory mood Monday as they kicked off an annual energy summit, showed just how quickly they are rolling back their support for a rapid transition from carbon fuels to cleaner power.
Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.
With President Donald Trump in the White House, they cheered a reset they say is overdue after living through a years-long regulatory and corporate push toward green energy.
“We can all feel the winds of history in the sails of our businesses again,” Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, said of the vibe at this year’s S&P Global CERAWeek conference. The push for a rapid energy transition to clean power, he said, “was doomed to fail.”
At breakfast presentations, corporate-sponsored receptions and in carefully crafted messages for investors, executives at this year’s Houston meeting repeated administration talking points. They applauded as Trump’s energy secretary ripped into climate goals. And they promoted plans to build a lot more fossil-fuel infrastructure, arguing that the quest for cleaner energy that Joe Biden made a central element of his presidency needs to be supplanted by a recognition that petro fuels are essential to satisfy the United States’ surging demand for power.
Advertisement
Energy Secretary Chris Wright seized on these developments in what amounted to a call to arms against climate-focused energy policy.
🌱
Follow Climate & environment
“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that have imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright vowed, in an address that drew enthusiastic applause and even some hoots.
Wright said at the conference that the administration had just approved another permit for infrastructure to ship U.S. liquefied natural gas abroad, much to the dismay of climate activists who warn the facilities lock in massive amounts of emissions for decades. In this case, a floating terminal that Delfin LNG is building off the coast of Louisiana has been authorized by the Energy Department to export 1.8 billion cubic feet of gas per day.
It all signaled an industry agenda that has changed starkly since the November election. The firms welcomed a return to their old playbook of drilling and building fossil-fuel infrastructure to meet the energy needs of the artificial-intelligence industry and a boom in manufacturing.
The shift jeopardizes many of these companies’ own goals for eliminating climate pollution. Only 8 percent of energy companies are on track to cancel out their emissions by 2050, a common industry target, according to the consulting firm Accenture.
Days before the Houston conference, BP, once at the forefront of the energy transition, told investors that its “optimism for a fast transition was misplaced,” as it said it would shift billions of dollars in planned investment away from clean energy and into fossil fuels.
Advertisement
Chevron, a champion of the goals in the Paris climate agreement, welcomed the Trump energy agenda, even as he withdraws the United States from that pact.
“We’re seeing some reality come back into the conversation,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in Houston on Monday. “We’ve got really well-qualified people in the Trump administration. … I think the conversation is going to reset to where it always should have been.”
