Exxon Loves Subsidies For Putative Climate Techno-Fixes So Much That It Sponsored An Event At The DNC In Chicago

hen the oil giant ExxonMobil sponsored an event at the re-energizing Democratic national convention (DNC) in Chicago last week, it was disrupted by climate activists outraged that big oil was invited on to an influential political platform. “Exxon lies, people die,” protesters shouted before being evicted.

The event included a “fireside chat” with Vijay Swarup, the company’s senior climate strategy and technology director. Swarup is a 30-year Exxon veteran who headed the company’s research and development team for just under a decade, and oversaw initiatives on biofuels, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen. Speaking at the DNC event, Swarup said: “We need new technology and we need policy to support that technology. We need governments working with private industry.” The Exxon executive also praised the Biden administration’s landmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in 2022, for helping the company pursue new CCS and hydrogen projects.

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The US multinational has not always been such a strong advocate for the technology, but now argues that CCS is crucial in the climate fight and works, in theory, by capturing carbon dioxide from hard-to-abate heavy industries, like steel or cement, and pumping it underground to be stored indefinitely. Exxon champions itself as a “global leader” in CCS, maintaining it is driving “meaningful change” in the fight against global heating. But an estimated two-thirds to three-quarters of the carbon currently captured in the US is used to extract hard-to-reach reserves, a practice known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR). And the reputation of CCS has largely been one of “underperformance” and “unmet expectations”, the International Energy Agency said in 2023.

And Exxon’s shift to promoting CCS – or any climate solution – is relatively recent. For much of Swarup’s three decades at Exxon, the oil giant was accused by civil society and climate scientists as being behind a vast network of neoliberal organizations that have denied evidence about the climate emergency, manufactured scientific doubt and delayed regulatory action. Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, outlines in his book the New Climate War, the substantial role Exxon played in both denying the threat of climate change and opposing efforts to move toward clean energy. Journalist Steve Coll also recalls in his 2012 book Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power how Exxon remained in the defiant “fuck you, no apologies, oil-is-here-to-stay mode”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/29/exxon-mobil-carbon-capture-government-subsidies