US energy industry is putting profits over people, advocates say

At a major oil and gas conference in Texas this week, companies publicly retreated from their flashy climate pledges of years past, redoubling their commitment to planet-warming fossil fuels.

The withdrawals illustrate the companies’ allegiance not to ordinary Americans, but to their shareholders and the climate-skeptical Trump administration, advocates said.

“We didn’t necessarily feel that those climate goals were really being done in a sincere, earnest way in the first place,” said Shiv Srivastava, an organizer and policy researcher with the Houston-based environmental justice organization Fenceline Watch. “It’s bad that they’re walking them back, but the problem was always that they could choose to walk them back if they wanted.”

Five years ago, amid climate rollbacks from the first Trump administration, BP made headlines when it announced a plan to dramatically slash oil and gas production and up its renewable energy capacity twentyfold. Months later, Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, also made a much-lauded promise to “fundamentally reshape finance to deal with climate change”.

Today, the companies are singing a different tune. Late last month, six weeks into Trump’s second term, BP said it would increase its investment in oil and gas to $10bn a year while slashing more than $5bn from its previous green investment plan.

“I’m super excited we’ve launched it now,” BP’s CEO, Murray Auchincloss, said of the plan at the oil and gas conference CERAWeek in Houston on Tuesday.

In January, BlackRock said it was leaving a key international group of asset managers committed to net-zero investments, though the company pledged continue allowing investors to place money into into climate-focused funds. The coalition has since said it is temporarily shutting down.

“We have to think about power and energy in a pragmatic way,” Fink said, adding that he believes gas will play a “major role” in the US for decades. He showed off a bracelet he wore that read: “Make energy great again.”

Other companies have similarly eschewed their past climate commitments. Shell in December announced reduced investments in renewable energy. The company is “simplifying” its portfolio and focusing on expanding gas, Shell’s CEO, Wael Sawan, told CERAWeek attenders on Monday.

Within the span of a month from December to January, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan all said they were abandoning their commitment to a UN-sponsored group, under which members pledge to zero out emissions from their investment portfolios.

The announcements bring the companies into alignment with the Trump administration’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda. If the widespread climate retreat results in additional fossil fuel production, it will have disastrous consequences for those living in the most polluted and climate-vulnerable areas, said Srivastava.

“It’s a further darkening of the skies for communities like ours,” he said.

The true impact of the announcements will depend on market forces. Right now, many companies are reluctant to increase domestic oil and gas production, which already soared to record levels under Joe Biden. Adding to that supply could suppress energy prices and put a damper on profits, so many may choose to keep their production flat unless fuel prices increase.

What will not dictate energy policy, Srivastava said, is climate science. Top experts have long warned that the world must phase out planet-warming coal, oil, and gas to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis.

“Decarbonization is clearly not the concern,” he said.

Even before the recent round of rollbacks, corporate climate plans were insufficient to stem the climate crisis, experts have long warned. As it touted its green pledges, BlackRock maintained relationships with climate-denying politicians and was backing fewer environmentally and socially focused investment proposals. A May report from the research and advocacy non-profit Oil Change International also found that oil majors’ climate pledges were incompatible with the goals of the UN Paris climate agreement, with most companies planning to expand fossil fuel production.

“Big oil and gas companies’ talk about transition has always been cheap,” said Kelly Trout, research director of Oil Change International. “A key lesson to take away is this: We cannot rely on the same companies that got us into this crisis to get us out of it.”

The abandoning of climate commitments puts corporations out of step with the desires of the majority of Americans. December polling by the progressive thinktank Climate and Community Institute suggested most US voters support efforts to wind down fossil fuel production. A 2024 study in the journal Nature Climate Change found that 89% of the world’s population want their governments to “do more” to fix climate change. And a January survey from Yale and George Mason University found that “most Americans, including many Republicans, do not support President Donald Trump’s proposed climate and energy policies.”

At a Monday protest – the largest ever seen at CERAWeek – activists highlighted the disconnect between ordinary Americans’ concerns and energy policy. Tickets for this year’s conference cost more than $10,000, they noted, and only two panels this year were livestreamed to the public.

“They’re here making decisions about our communities without giving us a seat at the table … without considering our best interests,” said Isabella Guinigundo, a campaigner with the activist group Youth Climate Finance Alliance. “They won’t even let us watch.”

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Stephen Collopy

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