ExxonMobil Continues Fight Against Global Warming Science
February 2nd, 2007ExxonMobil announced Thursday it made $39.5 billion in profits last year, breaking its own world record for 2005 of $36.1 billion - the most profits ever made by a company in a single year.
Exxon Mobil Posts Record Annual Profit
Unfortunately, according to the Exxpose Exxon Coalition, CEO Rex Tillerson is poised to pump most of that money right back into polluting oil and gas projects, lobbying against solutions to global warming, and funding front groups and junk science.
If ExxonMobil invested less than one month of its 2006 profits in renewable energy like wind, solar, or biomass, it would have more than doubled all federal spending last year on renewable energy, fuel efficiency and alternative fuels combined ($1.8 billion).
Unlike its competitors, ExxonMobil is avidly opposed to renewable energy. In Davos last week, CEO Rex Tillerson told the business crowd that “even if renewable energy production grows at double digit rates, it will remain less than 2 percent of world energy supplies.” But current calculations by the Renewable Energy Policy Network calculate that renewable energy already supplies roughly 4 percent of world power.
DAVOS Exxon Mobil CEO sees 2030 world energy consumption up 50 pct
That ExxonMobil’s predictions on renewable energy are notoriously off-base is not surprising given that up until just recently ExxonMobil has denied that global warming is even a serious problem. Now, after being battered for a year and a half by hundreds of thousands of Exxpose Exxon activists and coalition members, ExxonMobil has begun to shift its rhetoric - not its policies, but its rhetoric.
The good news is that Exxon finally admitted recently that somebody should do something about global warming. The bad news is they refuse to recognize that they are that somebody…
While ExxonMobil is changing nuances of its language to try to remedy its PR problem, it is still funding scores of front groups that mislead the public about global warming. It is also still opposing mandatory reductions of global warming pollution.
We have a bit of a PR problem on global warming, ExxonMobil admits
Meanwhile, ten corporate giants, including Duke Energy, GE, Alcoa, PG&E and oil giant BP, announced last week their broad support for mandatory reductions of global warming pollution. ExxonMobil, who typically outspends its competitors in the industry on lobbyists, reiterated its intentions to continue lobbying against such solutions.
After intense pressure from activists, scientists and policy makers and wide coverage of a 2007 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, ExxonMobil told the Wall Street Journal that it stopped funding “five or six” front groups that deny the science of global warming.
Ending funding for “five or six” out of over 40 groups is far from a policy change. Exxpose Exxon quickly sent ExxonMobil a letter asking the company to disclose the names of the groups and to clarify its actual position on funding junk science. Exxon did not respond.
The fact is, ExxonMobil is going to be hard-pressed to convince America that it is concerned about global warming when it is still funding scores of front groups and think tanks that put out disinformation on global warming science and policy.
Exxon needs to stop opposing mandatory reductions of GHG emissions, stop funding front groups and junk science, invest in renewable energy, pull out of Arctic Power and leave the Arctic Refuge alone - and pay the punitive damages to the victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Exxpose Exxon members include: Alaska Coalition, Alaska Oceans Program, Alaska Wilderness League, Co-op America, Corporate Accountability International, Defenders of Wildlife, Ecopledge.com, Environmental Action, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, MoveOn.org, National Environmental Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen, Oil Change International, Sierra Club, True Majority, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
Tags: Global Warming
