The Two faces of ExxonMobil

Jan 07, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – If ExxonMobil were ever to come out of the oil business, it would do well to continue its corporate life as a political party. Its leaders stand a strong chance of being victorious in any election contested. The people at ExxonMobil have earned this confidence because, like successful politicians, they have perfected the art of displaying two faces, speaking from two sides of their mouths, and standing on two sides of any issue. The contribution of fossil fuels to climate change is a case in point in this twisted, two-faced nature of ExxonMobil, and how its public messages and postures in public emerge from the distortions that gather steam and solidify in its private deliberations.

The Wall Street Journal’s edition of September 23, 2023, carried an article titled, “Inside Exxon’s strategy to downplay climate change.” Thanks to the Journal’s revealing article, the inner workings of ExxonMobil (and that of probably other oil companies) are exposed, and it is an ugly litany of doubletalk, sweettalk, and the kind of talk that conmen the world over to make suckers of the naïve and gullible. From its own scientists, its own studies, its own documents, and the results of its own sifting through the data, ExxonMobil top people knew that fossil fuels were featuring in climate change concerns and dangers.

“It’s almost reluctantly that we address CO2 emissions. It’s not a positive story. Global emissions continue to rise throughout the outlook timeframe -that is clearly a cause for concern.” Scott Nauman, an ExxonMobil corporate planning manager emailed those concerns to the company’s powerful decisionmakers in a January 2009 message. Yet there was then CEO Tillerson, in a February 2009 speech to Stanford University’s Global Climate and Energy Project, saying that “the most cost-effective steps we can take to manage this energy and environmental challenge is to extend our energy efficiency gains.” Mr. Tillerson’s speech included that declaration, even as he knew of the January email (weeks earlier) from Scott Nauman that warned: “We would like them to be lower, but given the state of technology, given the need for energy, given the practical choices for energy, emissions rise despite aggressive efficiency gains.”

In other words, Mr. Tillerson knew that what he was telling his Stanford University audience was in direct contradiction to what was circulating inside the company. It was what was known and accepted within ExxonMobil. Whatever had to done, whatever positive picture had to be painted publicly, whatever subtle distortions had to be employed, it was ExxonMobil’s standard to just do it. In everyday interactions and exchanges that is called deceiving or misleading, which are polite substitutes for twisting the truth and, at bottom, lying a little to gain a lot. The business had to be preserved by any means possible, whatever that required. On the one hand, the company’s scientists and their models were modeling worrying increases in emissions, unless there were severe cutbacks in fossil fuel consumption. On the other hand, there was Mr. Tillerson insisting that “energy efficiency gains” would save the day. What he was not saying publicly was that profits come before protecting the planet, and profits always stand in front of people.

One of the tricks that the company used to facilitate its kind of climate change messages before the public was to stop engaging in many of its own climate change research. The new approach was to fund think tanks, with the objective of getting “science to support of our business.” That is corporate speak for getting money in the right scientists’ hands, so that they can deliver what is favourable to ExxonMobil’s climate change postures. Rex Tillerson came from a line of ExxonMobil CEOs who did everything they could to deny the link between fossil fuel burning and climate change. When outright denying was no longer feasible, then minimizing the dangers was settled for as the next best option.

The CEO of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, takes a diplomatic approach. These are good men and things have been taken out of context. Absent from Woods’ narrative is the ride that ExxonMobil has been taking the world on, with its two-faced, two sides of its mouth, positions on climate change, and all for more profits.

contribution, corporate, Editorial, ExxonMobil, Private

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The Two faces of ExxonMobil

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