Exxon chief says Donald Trump shouldn't abandon the Paris climate accords

Ben Kesslen
·2-min read
Photo: Apu Gomes (Getty Images)
Photo: Apu Gomes (Getty Images)

Exxon Mobil’s CEO said he wants Presidential-elect Donald Trump to keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate Agreement.

CEO Darren Woods told The Wall Street Journal that Trump’s pledge to leave the climate accords for a second time — Trump exited them in his first term and President Joe Biden reentered the agreement after his inauguration — would create instability.

“I don’t think the stops and starts are the right thing for businesses,” Woods said. “It is extremely inefficient. It creates a lot of uncertainty.”

Woods’ statement isn’t a particularly surprising one, given Exxon’s celebration of Biden’s decision to reenter the Paris accord in 2021. Woods told the Journal that you don’t want “to have the pendulum swing back and forth as administrations change.”

“We don’t let political agendas drive our business and investment decisions we make,” Woods added.

His statements come at an interesting time for the oil industry, which might find itself at odds with the “drill baby drill” mindset that Trump ran on. In recent years, the oil industry — which is responsible for a massive amount of the carbon emissions fueling climate change — has tepidly taken up the cause of the environment and has sought government support for carbon-cutting technologies. Those subsidies will likely disappear under the Trump administration, which has pledged to dial back Biden’s green investments.

Paul Sankey, an independent analyst, told the Journal that companies like Exxon have been “working very hard to lower their emissions, and the last thing they want is for all the rules and regulations to change again.”

Myron Ebell, who was part of Trump’s first transition team, told the Journal he doubts Woods has much influence over the president-elect. Trump, he said, “is going to listen to the independent [companies] more than he’s going to listen to Darren Woods.”

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