- Acknowledging that Anthropogenic Global Warming is real, and - Revealing that their confidence on its effects is so strong, they can publicly predict its impact on global climate decades into the future.
I guess from their perspective, in spite of all criticism, they are just accommodating the energy demands of the global market, which have been universally "more energy now" until very recently.
This is just part of that.
I recently heard it referred to as "The Slow Breakup" pattern[1] from a Youtuber who has done a great job (though tone is a little much sometimes) of breaking down alt-right propaganda and rhetoric, though these tactics can be used by any political movement.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpUN0q35Lak&list=PLJA_jUddXv...
The easiest way to see it would be to put a tax on the vendor's products, at the source. But they have lobbied specifically against that, as well as other any other approach that might cut into their profits.
Maybe you mean that the consumers' countries should tax the fossil fuel sold to consumers. You're a voter in one of those, I bet, and probably one that taxes fossil fuel at a rate well below 80%.
It's not possible to stop this juggernaut through individuals choosing to opt out of fossil fuels.
I don't consider myself powerless. I can do some things, can't do others. Most significantly, I vote. That ~80% tax was established, and not just that. For example, you may have seen this charger (blue and white on the left)?
https://www.wartsila.com/images/default-source/products/e-pm...
That tiny little charger charges the batteries on the ferry. It and the ferry had to be developed. I voted for that and it exists.
Energy companies are both huge part of the problem - and at the same time the only reason modern civilization exists.
Hydrocarbons are primary input still to most of the processes we have to exist above ... well, actually exist, because the alternative with this amount of people to hydrocarbon driven economy is mass starvation.
The energy companies should be taken to court for the damage they have done to planet via their anti-climate-action PR.
But, at the same time we need their product to live.
My point here is that nationalization has nothing to do with climate change.
This isn’t a binary choice. Imagine how much better off we’d be now if they’d accepted their own scientists’ reports in the 1970s and tried to get in on greening the economy instead of funding decades of obstruction? Jimmy Carter could have gotten his nuclear power plants, the remaining ICE vehicles would use a fraction of the fuel as the average vehicle purchased in the United States today, and we’d be saving our carbon emissions for things which are harder to replace like industrial chemistry rather than literally heating the outdoors so someone doesn’t need to wear long sleeves to dinner.
>This January, Harvard researchers published a new report that showed that not only did Exxon know about climate change, they were predicting the exact amount of global warming we’re now experiencing with remarkable accuracy.
exxonknew.org (The website is now changed to an emberassing star wars theme sadly.)
Shell also knew very early:
https://www.ftm.eu/articles/shell-climate-coal
> I guess from their perspective, in spite of all criticism, they are just accommodating the energy demands of the global market, which have been universally "more energy now" until very recently.
Most comments here comes down to 'that's just humanity man' while these are people that spend millions if not billions on manipulating public perception of fossil fuels even though they knew they were lying and inflicting actual harm on the world. It would've cost the economy much much less if we had started transitioning in the 1970s instead of knowingly leaving externalized debt to the rest of humanity.
Energy is the life blood of our civilization.
No matter how you slice it, as you point out, they've known about the problem, they've lied about the problem, they've spent millions of dollars in a public deception campaign - and they've been doing it for decades.
Heck, we're still getting to the bottom of all the damage brought on by their adding tetraethyl lead to their gasoline. It's going to take even longer sorting out through all this mess. They'd just like us to forget about it and move along. That's not gonna happen.
I think hell would be too good for the people who knew about this issue and lied for decades about it to try to turn a buck, instead of just doing the obvious thing and investing in new energy technologies.
Nobody has made them invest in more and more infrastructure instead of alternative energy. Nobody made them pay public relations companies to spread FUD about climate science and mitigation. These people are guilty of crimes against humanity as far as I'm concerned.
They’re still that. The nature of competition suggests they’ll always be that. Trying to square the circle without acknowledging that led to a lot of failed environmental policy over the past decades.
Shell Is Looking Forward The fossil-fuel companies expect to profit from climate change. I went to a private planning meeting and took notes: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/shell-climate-change...
Algorithm:
1) Give us trillions of dollars in subsidies[1] to extract oil, well, because, people need it
2) Give us billions of dollars now for carbon capture (and this will increase), shows Greta's picture, because, erm, we are taking action on climate change
3) We'll extract more oil [3] (enhanced oil recovery, EOR) using the captured carbon to increase both (1) and (2)
Oil industry is exceptionally good at stealing everyone's money. Now there is some light on climate change, you can bet that oil industry will get hundreds of billions of dollars. The climate conversations are completely taken over by big oil: Sultan Al Jaber was named President-Designate of COP28 UAE in January of 2023. He is the chairman and a founder of the UAE's renewable energy company Masdar.
Trillions will be spent worldwide on carbon capture (not just the plants, but infrastructure for EOR such as pipelines[4]), all of which directly goes into big oil pockets.
[1] Worldwide subsidies for fossil fuels surged to a record $7-trillion in 2022, equal to 7.1% of the global gross domestic product, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-08-28-fossil-fu...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Nations_Climate_Ch...
[3] Out of the 27 commercially operational CCS projects worldwide, 21 inject carbon dioxide into oil reservoirs to force out petroleum: https://www.landclimate.org/what-is-happening-with-carbon-ca...
[4] CO2 pipelines: There are now about 5,300 miles of CO2 pipelines in the U.S., but in the next few decades, that number could grow to more than 65,000 miles
[5]It Will Cost More Than Total Future Production to Clean Up California Oil Sites: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36182016