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Exxon's Plan For Surging Carbon Emissions Revealed In Leaked Documents 67

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Exxon Mobil has been planning to increase annual carbon-dioxide emissions by as much as the output of the entire nation of Greece, an analysis of internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg shows, setting one of the largest corporate emitters against international efforts to slow the pace of warming. The drive to expand both fossil-fuel production and planet-warming pollution comes at a time when some of Exxon's rivals, such as BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, are moving to curb oil and zero-out emissions. Exxon's own assessment of its $210 billion investment strategy shows yearly emissions rising 17% by 2025, according to the internal documents.

The largest U.S. oil producer has never made a commitment to lower oil and gas output or set a date by which it will become carbon neutral, and its near-term plans have been disrupted by fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. Exxon has also never publicly disclosed its forecasts for its own emissions. But the planning documents show for the first time that Exxon has carefully assessed the direct emissions it expects from the seven-year investment plan adopted in 2018 by Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods. The additional 21 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year that would result from ramping up production dwarfs Exxon's projections for its own efforts to reduce pollution, such as deploying renewable energy and burying some carbon dioxide. The report notes that these internal estimates "reflect only a small portion of Exxon's total contribution to climate change," and don't take into account emissions "from customers burning fuel in vehicles or other end uses."

"That means the full climate impact of Exxon's growth strategy could likely be five times the company's estimate -- or about 100 million tons of additional carbon dioxide -- had the company accounted for so-called Scope 3 emissions. If its plans are realized, Exxon would add to the atmosphere the annual emissions of a small, developed nation, or 26 coal-fired power plants."
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Exxon's Plan For Surging Carbon Emissions Revealed In Leaked Documents More

Exxon's Plan For Surging Carbon Emissions Revealed In Leaked Documents

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  • I'm shocked (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Monday October 05, 2020 @07:09PM (#60575732) Homepage

    Actually, no I'm not. Exxon is evil.

    Did anyone not know this?

    • I always knew they were categorically evil, but I had previously scoffed at allegations that they had ancient ties to a apocalyptic death cult.

      • I always knew they were categorically evil, but I had previously scoffed at allegations that they had ancient ties to a apocalyptic death cult.

        Worship of the Sumerian god Enk'son isn't strictly speaking a death cult, they merely believe in the recreation of the world in a new form. The fact that most of it will be uninhabitable isn't mentioned on any clay tablets, but a lot has been lost over the years.

        (The annex to the apocrypha to the Epic of Gilgamesh most likely spells it Enk'son, it's changed a bit in the last few thousand years).

        • no, the death cult that displays their magical leader nailed to a cross

          Apparently he reappeared as a zombie

          can't get any more death culty than that

    • Actually, no I'm not. Exxon is evil.

      Did anyone not know this?

      Everybody knew.

      Hex On Exxon!

      Miles cable, claws, driller killer ripping holes, all tattered the cloth stained, regaining.
      All the weather, acid rains, so sweet sweat streaks downpoured on humility.
      Colder time, talking hints, watching tests of heat, mangled meat, retaliate! No blaming.
      In future dreams could you have stopped it from happening?
      Best left a spectator? Spectacle? Traitor!
      All the time's, placed, first place!
      Farther down, pull the trigger, gauging, gauging.
      Cars kills at will, melted profits, book burning.
      How undone, written slurs, the meaning...
      Oh the pasts they will repeat, hard to hit, so are beat.
      Melted profits, the past, melting, under honor.
      Cars kill at will, cars kill at will.
      Mr. Fables' rolls, altogether mutating. The chains rattle, happy to perform!
      In the war of famine, no where arid food growing now.
      Warming trends the place, passive cows to feed the weak.
      Product waste! Give back. Oil coming in.
      Make a million living things suffer, hidden, black garbage body bags.
      What of that change that could save everything?
      That paper shredder, patent tender, puts us back in time again.
      Exxon, your black hearts make me sick.
      Budgets that burst with oil, crude gas in purse. No compassion, common criminals seek asylum.
      Concrete pillow, Exxon dreams, hidden hierarchy. No one in power taking blame.

      Skinny Puppy, 1989
      https://youtu.be/5KHDb9xwHvc [youtu.be]

    • I did not know this, but thats not the point. It raises the question - how can we stop them? Clearly they have no intention of stopping, but its absolutely necessary that they do.

  • Too bad ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @07:20PM (#60575746)

    ... we don't have a cap and trade emissions market in place. Exxon's plans would benefit BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others as they would profit from selling their permits.

    • ... we don't have a cap and trade emissions market in place. Exxon's plans would benefit BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others as they would profit from selling their permits.

      Surely with what is happening with DeFi we can create carbon negative Liquidity Pools, Grassroots Blockchain Trade-able Energy Quotas, Where people can store their "wealth" in smartcontracts that pay out if we can survive the Anthropocene .

      • Re:DEFI (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @10:27PM (#60576152) Homepage

        It is just market moves. Exxon sees the other fossil fuel corporation shifting out of the fossil fuel market and into other forms of energy. This creates a low price opportunity to buy into those fossil fuel sources to take them over, set up a monopoly and do manipulative things with pricing. They want to be the vultures of the fossil fuel era. Evil feeding on evil.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Bingo!

    • Carbon trading is just a way to rubberstamp pollution.

      Cap and tax, do not cap and trade.

      Spend the taxes on ecological remediation and carbon fixing.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Spend the taxes on

        Yeah. Like that ever works. The money will end up funding UBI, more arms for Israel and gender reassignment surgery for pre-teens. And once the gov't becomes addicted to carbon tax revenues, they will encourage more pollution. To increase the cash flow.

  • Captain Planet villainy on bath salts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Monday October 05, 2020 @08:43PM (#60575916) Journal

    If in the early 2000s you had written a sci-fi novel where the villain was a megacoporation that set out to destroy their planet, the only habitable planet in reach or in sight, after secretly realizing exactly what it was doing long before anyone else did, it would've been considered a ridiculous idea, but now here we are.

    • I remember a very old short story by Isaac Asimov - I don't remember the title and the plot is not relevant to the matter - set in an alternate timeline, where Earth is ruled by a bunch of guys dressed like Uncle Pennybags (the character on the box and board of Monopoly: top hat, tailcoat, striped trousers and the rest). Trains are still pulled by soot-spewing steam engines because, you know, you do not ditch a perfectly profitable business, just because some fool has invented the electric motor... (of cour

    • The tale of the scorpion and the frog seems particularly relevant here.

  • Surely with everything else that we know is happening, there has to be laws in place to prevent them from doing this. Right?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 )
      You stop them by not buying gasoline.

      • That's like saying you want to stop slavery by not buying a slave.

        More needs to be done to stop them than simply "not buying gasoline".

        • Re:So how do we stop them? (Score:4, Informative)

          by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @10:16PM (#60576128) Journal
          Slavery ended because most people were against it.

          Oil is sucked out of the ground because most people use it.

          To stop the oil producers, stop the people using it. Most people are not going to be on your side if you stop them from getting oil (without a replacement).
          • "Slavery ended because most people were against it." That's a real gloss. You're not going to improve what sucks about the so called free market by participating in it.

            • You're not going to improve what sucks about the so called free market by participating in it.

              Convince people to stop using oil.

              • Convincing people is one thing for sure, but even if you've convinced them then funding the change of vehicles to electric/hybrid and change of central heating from oil/gas over to things like Electric or preferably GSHP/ASHP/Solar and thermal stores is a big mountain to climb over too.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
                A childish simplification. You can get millions of people who are willing to turn away from internal combustion engines, that doesn't mean the auto companies will stop trying to sell them overpriced gas guzzlers to feed the consumer's psychological need to feel protected and powerful. If you'll recall, oil companies like BP were greenwashing about turning away from fossil fuels ten years ago. Now they're all struggling for storage, so I bet they wish they actually did when they were pretending to.
                • What I hear you saying is that oil companies are better at convincing than you are.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
                    Yeah, they can be convincing when they own all the politicians who only collect a paycheck because they're supposed to be representing YOU. But it looks like that isn't a problem to you, your precious free market is so much more important than anything else. Unfortunately the next one to be sacrificed on the altar of the free market is you.
                    • I don't think people are so attacked to oil. As soon as electric cars are cheap enough, people will prefer them over gasoline cars.

          • Re:So how do we stop them? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by amorsen ( 7485 ) <benny+slashdot@amorsen.dk> on Tuesday October 06, 2020 @06:50AM (#60576884)

            Slavery ended because most people were against it.

            But slavery did NOT end because customers decided to not use cotton, or switch to cotton alternatives, or switch to cotton produced without slavery. Fixing the demand side was useless.

            Slavery ended because enough people were fed up with it that they were willing to either a) have their government pay slave owners to stop owning slaves or b) have their government wage a bloody war against slave owners.

            • But slavery did NOT end because customers decided to not use cotton, or switch to cotton alternatives, or switch to cotton produced without slavery.

              Uh yeah, actually they did. Seriously, look up that stuff before posting, your ignorance is embarrassing.

              Slavery ended because enough people were fed up with it that they were willing to either a) have their government pay slave owners to stop owning slaves or b) have their government wage a bloody war against slave owners.

              I want you to listen very carefully and turn on your brain: if most people had supported slavery, the government would have done none of that.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by amorsen ( 7485 )

                Why don't you bolster your arguments with some documentation? Surely not because said documentation only exists in your fevered mind?

                There were boycotts, but there is no indication that consumer boycotts hastened the end of slavery in the US.

                See e.g. http://www.quakersintheworld.o... [quakersintheworld.org]

                Slavery ended because CITIZENS wanted it gone. CONSUMERS did very little. Similarly the Global Warming will be mitigated if the CITIZENS take actions, not just CONSUMERS boycotting products.

              • So you are saying slavery ended because people stopped using cotton?

                Wow, so this is what troll bot looks like.
      • Wait, now do plastic...moron....

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      No. The alleged administration has gutted EPA and gone after the environmental laws with the oil industry hacks they put in place to run the federal agencies. Remember, the alleged president destroys everything he touches.

  • Crowd-funded murder for hire.
    • na.. that's cloneing of a idea from Trump, with the difference: he doesn't pay - he fills only his own pockets (at last he tries).

  • Can we designate them as a terrorist organization and act accordingly?

    • NO WAY _IF_ someone tries that _then_ we change the court rules, so that person / organization can be procecuted as terrorist..
  • What an utter rubbish article. Exxon doesn't emit those greenhouse gases. Exxon produces oil and gas which they sell to us, and we burn it. If Exxon increases production, that might lower prices slightly which in turn would increase demand a little, but looking at the oil market right now, I doubt they'll have a serious impact. And even if Exxon's increased production would drive an increased consumption, those extra emissions are still on us. We can curb those emissions anytime, by not buying Exxon's

    • This is not exactly true. Exxon gets effective government subsidies, for example turning their oil into fertilizers that are then subsidised or use on farms. This stuff is very much hidden and beyond the control of normal people. When they increase their production they probably plan to increase their political "donations" which will increase the demand for their products independent of what other people do.

      In order to reduce demand it's absolutely needed to get rid of the many hidden fossil fuel subsidi

    • What an utter rubbish article. Exxon doesn't emit those greenhouse gases

      Fuck me you have no idea how a refinery works do you. You burning the end product is only a part of the carbon cycle. Refining is an incredibly frigging carbon intensive process, one that can be optimised and have its emissions reduced in many ways. E.g. at least we stopped firing crude furnaces with oil lances and switched to natural gas. At least those companies located in countries which have actual emissions laws have. So is upstream for that matter. There are some companies out there which are more tha

      • Of all CO2 emissions generated by fossil fuels, 10-20% is generated directly by the oil companies during production, refining and transport (I do have an idea about these number, you pick up a thing or 2 after 15+ years in the oil & gas industry). The article quotes 20% for Exxon. So yes, sure, you are technically correct: these companies do emit CO2, and enough of it to make it worth the effort to try and reduce it a bit.

        My issue was with the article conflating direct and indirect emissions, and

        • Well at least you backpedaled and admitted that Exxon claim to emit 20% rather than the free pass you seemed to give them. To be clear that is 20% of one of the most carbon intensive processes we have on the planet. And while good ol' Exxon is giving the world the middle finger the likes of Shell, BP, and Total are actually investing in electric charging infrastructure as well directly helping to reduce even customers burning the damn product.

          I'm impressed though. After 15 years in the oil and gas industry

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amorsen ( 7485 )

      Exxon doesn't emit those greenhouse gases.

      Yes. Yes it does. I know it is out of fashion, but RTFA.

    • Remind us again what powers those oil rigs..

  • ... is futile. The climate doesn't care whether the emissions come from them, BP, Shell, or Saudi Aramco.

    We won't have a chance to fix climate change unless we force *all* fossil fuel extractors to
    reduce production *or* compensate (but with real, working negative emission tech).

    Until we do so, singling out one producer only serves to grab public attention.

  • Fucking dinosaurs doubling down on dead dinosaur fuel. Even among climate-change doubters the tide is turning, and renewables are getting cheaper and gaining ground. Exxon is going to get their ass handed to them in the market.

  • OMFG! The size of the population of GREECE!!! We're all gonna DIE! Yeah, um, New York City has nearly twice that population.

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