Tag Archives: Big Oil

Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics

Rising authoritarianism and worsening climate change share a fossil-fueled secret

Around the world, many countries are becoming less democratic. This backsliding on democracy and “creeping authoritarianism,” as the U.S. State Department puts it, is often supported by the same industries that are escalating climate change.

In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy.

It’s a dangerous shift, both for representative government and for the future climate.

Corporate capture of environmental politics

In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle that prioritizes citizens over corporate profits has been aggressively undermined.

Today, it’s easy to find political leaders – on both the political right and left – working on behalf of corporations in energy, finance, agribusiness, technology, military and pharmaceutical sectors, and not always in the public interest. These multinational companies help fund their political careers and election campaigns to keep them in office.

In the U.S., this relationship was cemented by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United. The decision allowed almost unlimited spending by corporations and wealthy donors to support the political candidates who best serve their interests. Data shows that candidates with the most outside funding usually win. This has led to increasing corporate influence on politicians and party policies.

When it comes to the political parties, it’s easy to find examples of campaign finance fueling political agendas.

In 1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen testified before a U.S. Senate committee about the greenhouse effect, both the Republican and Democratic parties took climate change seriously. But this attitude quickly diverged. Since the 1990s, the energy sector has heavily financed conservative candidates who have pushed its interests and helped to reduce regulations on the fossil fuel industry. This has enabled the expansion of fossil fuel production and escalated CO2 emissions to dangerous levels.

The industry’s power in shaping policy plays out in examples like the coalition of 19 Republican state attorneys general and coal companies suing to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

At the same time that the energy sector has sought to influence policies on climate change, it has also worked to undermine the public’s understanding of climate science. For instance, records show ExxonMobil participated in a widespread climate-science denial campaign for years, spending more than US$30 million on lobbyists, think tanks and researchers to promote climate-science skepticism. These efforts continue today. A 2019 report found the five largest oil companies had spent over $1 billion on misleading climate-related lobbying and branding campaigns over the previous three years.

The energy industry has in effect captured the democratic political process and prevented enactment of effective climate policies.

Corporate interests have also fueled a surge in well-financed antidemocratic leaders who are willing to stall and even dismantle existing climate policies and regulations. These political leaders’ tactics have escalated public health crises, and in some cases, human rights abuses.

Brazil, Australia and the US

Many deeply antidemocratic governments are tied to oil, gas and other extractive industries that are driving climate change, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and China.

In “Global Burning,” I explore how three leaders of traditionally democratic countries – Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Scott Morrison of Australia and Donald Trump in the U.S. – came to power on anti-environment and nationalist platforms appealing to an extreme-right populist base and extractive corporations that are driving climate change. While the political landscape of each country is different, the three leaders have important commonalities.

Bolsonaro, Morrison and Trump all depend on extractive corporations to fund electoral campaigns and keep them in office or, in the case of Trump, get reelected.

For instance, Bolsonaro’s power depends on support from a powerful right-wing association of landowners and farmers called the União Democrática Ruralista, or UDR. This association reflects the interests of foreign investors and specifically the multibillion-dollar mining and agribusiness sectors. Bolsonaro promised that if elected in 2019, he would dismantle environmental protections and open, in the name of economic progress, industrial-scale soybean production and cattle grazing in the Amazon rainforest. Both contribute to climate change and deforestation in a fragile region considered crucial for keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.

Bolsonaro, Morrison and Trump are all openly skeptical of climate science. Not surprisingly, all have ignored, weakened or dismantled environmental protection regulations. In Brazil, that led to accelerated deforestation and large swaths of Amazon rainforest burning.

In Australia, Morrison’s government ignored widespread public and scientific opposition and opened the controversial Adani Carmichael mine, one of the largest coal mines in the world. The mine will impact public health and the climate and threatens the Great Barrier Reef as temperatures rise and ports are expanded along the coast.

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement – a move opposed by a majority of Americans – rolled back over 100 laws meant to protect the environment and opened national parks to fossil fuel drilling and mining.

Notably, all three leaders have worked, sometimes together, against international efforts to stop climate change. At the United Nations climate talks in Spain in 2019, Costa Rica’s minister for environment and energy at the time, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, blamed Brazil, Australia and the U.S. for blocking efforts to tackle climate injustice linked to global warming.

Brazil, Australia and the U.S. are not unique in these responses to climate change. Around the world, there have been similar convergences of antidemocratic leaders who are financed by extractive corporations and who implement anti-environment laws and policies that defend corporate profits. New to the current moment is that these leaders openly use state power against their own citizens to secure corporate land grabs to build dams, lay pipelines, dig mines and log forests.

For example, Trump supported the deployment of the National Guard to disperse Native Americans and environmental activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project that he had personally been invested in. His administration also proposed harsher penalties for pipeline protesters that echoed legislation promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose members include lawmakers and lobbyists for the oil industry. Several Republican-led states enacted similar anti-protest laws.

Under Bolsonaro, Brazil has changed laws in ways that embolden land grabbers to push small farmers and Indigenous people off their land in the rainforest.

What can people do about it?

Fortunately, there is a lot that people can do to protect democracy and the climate.

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and reducing the destruction of forests can cut greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest obstacles, a recent U.N. climate report noted, are national leaders who are unwilling to regulate fossil fuel corporations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or plan for renewable energy production.

The path forward, as I see it, involves voters pushing back on the global trend toward authoritarianism, as Slovenia did in April 2022, and pushing forward on replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. People can reclaim their democratic rights and vote out anti-environment governments whose power depends on prioritizing extractive capitalism over the best interests of their citizens and our collective humanity.

Eve Darian-Smith, Professor of Global and International Studies, University of California, Irvine

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Business, Climate Solutions, News, Politics

As Consumers Pay, Oil CEO’s Refuse to Testify to Congress About Soaring Prices

“While Americans struggle with high gas prices, these companies are doing victory laps, showering their already wealthy executives and shareholders with billions in stock buybacks and bonus compensation,” said one watchdog group. “They should be ashamed.”

As people across the United States face record-high gas prices—compounded by rising grocery bills and prices for other essentials—executives at three major oil companies are refusing to testify before Congress about what their firms could do to lessen the burden on U.S. households, leaving Democratic lawmakers and consumer advocates to condemn the companies for profiting amid lower and middle-class people’s financial pain.

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, had invited the CEOs of EOG Resources Inc., Devon Energy Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp. to testify next week, only to be rebuffedTuesday by the executives, who have personally profited off gas prices which averaged $4.24 per gallon on Monday.

“I invited these companies to come before the committee and make their case, but apparently they don’t think it’s worth defending,” Grijalva said in a statement Tuesday. “Their silence tells us all we need to know—that cries for more drilling and looser regulations are nothing more than another age-old attempt to line their own pockets.

Since oil and gas prices began rising earlier this year as traveling and commuting increased, and went up further following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the fossil fuel industry has claimed the Biden administration should release more permits for drilling on public lands and accelerate approval of permits for building energy infrastructure, with the American Petroleum Institute pushing for what Grijalva called “a domestic drilling free-for-all” earlier this month.

Lawmakers including Grijalva have argued that the companies could easily stabilize gas prices immediately, considering the billions of dollars in profits EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Occidental Petroleum raked in last year.

Instead, watchdog group Accountable.US said Tuesday, Occidental Petroleum planned to use $3 billion for stock buybacks in 2022, while Devon Energy gave nearly $2 billion in share buybacks and dividends to shareholders last year. EOG Resources gave CEO William R. Thomas a $150,000 raise in 2021, making his total compensation $9.8 million.

“We want to work with them to reduce gas prices, but it seems as though they’re too busy taking in record profits while refusing to pass savings on to consumers,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) sarcastically expressed empathy for the “spineless” executives who refused to testify before Grijalva’s committee.

“It is hardly surprising that EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Occidental Petroleum are dodging accountability by refusing to testify in Congress,” said Kyle Herrig, president of watchdog group Accountable.US. “While Americans struggle with high gas prices, these companies are doing victory laps, showering their already wealthy executives and shareholders with billions in stock buybacks and bonus compensation. They should be ashamed.”

Grijalva noted that while the industry has used the Russian invasion of Ukraine to call for even more freedom to drill for oil and gas, fossil fuel companies hold leases on 26 million acres of land.

“These same companies already have over 9,000 approved permits they can use whenever they want,” Grijalva told Public News Service on Tuesday. “And the very companies with thousands of acres of existing leases and hundreds of unused permits are the same ones shouting that they need more land for drilling.”

According to Accountable.US, the three companies refusing to speak to Grijalva’s committee “are among the top leaseholders of public lands oil and gas leases with 4,114 leases covering nearly 1.5 million acres.”

Companies including BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Shell have also been invited to testify at upcoming hearings on their business practices and impacts on consumers. In February, board members from the four companies refused to testify about the firms’ climate pledges.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted last week that oil prices dropped in recent days, but no savings were passed onto consumers.

“The bewildering incongruity between falling oil prices and rising gas prices smacks of price gouging and is deeply damaging to working Americans,” Schumer said last week. “The Senate is going to get answers.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY  and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Business, Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics

“They’re Lying”: Lots of Climate Misinformation Detected During Testimony of Big Oil CEOs

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“There is no longer any question: These companies knew and lied about their product’s role in the climate crisis, they continue to deceive, and they must be held accountable.”

Fossil fuel executives who testified Thursday at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing focused on decades of coordinated industry misinformation refused to pledge that their companies will stop lobbying against efforts to combat the climate emergency driven largely by their businesses.

That joint refusal came in response to a challenge from Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform—who at the end of the hearing announced subpoenas for documents the fossil fuel companies have failed to provide.

Earlier in the hearing, Maloney had asked if the Big Oil CEOs would affirm that their organizations “will no longer spend any money, either directly or indirectly, to oppose efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change.”

Advocates for climate action pointed to the moment as yet another example of major polluters impeding planet-saving policy.

“The silence, non-answers, and repeated deflections from Big Oil’s Slippery Six exposed once and for all that the fossil fuel industry won’t back off its commitment to spreading climate disinformation and lobbying against climate action in order to protect their bottom line,” Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement.

“For the first time ever, fossil fuel executives were confronted under oath with the evidence of their industry’s decadeslong efforts to deceive the American people about climate change,” Wiles continued. “They not only refused to accept responsibility for lying about the catastrophic effects of their fossil fuels—they refused to stop funding efforts to spread disinformation and oppose climate action.”

“There is no longer any question: These companies knew and lied about their product’s role in the climate crisis, they continue to deceive, and they must be held accountable,” he added. “Today’s hearing and the committee’s ongoing investigation are important steps in those efforts.”

Maloney and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who chairs the panel’s Subcommittee on the Environment, had threatened to subpoena the industry leaders—collectively dubbed the #SlipperySix—if they declined to join the hearing, entitled, “Fueling the Climate Crisis: Exposing Big Oil’s Disinformation Campaign to Prevent Climate Action.”

The historic event included testimony from four industry executives—ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, BP America CEO David Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, Shell Oil president Gretchen Watkins—and leaders from industry trade groups: American Petroleum Institute (API) president Mike Sommers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Suzanne Clark.

Kyle Herrig, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, warned that “lawmakers should be wary of testimony from executives who have consistently put their industry’s bottom line over the health of the climate and the American people, no matter their rhetoric.”

Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, a pair of climate misinformation scholars at Harvard University, have warned of a “fossil fuel savior frame” that “downplays the reality and seriousness of climate change, normalizes fossil fuel lock-in, and individualizes responsibility.”

Both Oreskes and Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn observed the presence of such framing during the hearing. Henn said that “it’s striking how much all these Big Oil execs come across as hostage-takers: ‘You need us. You can’t live without us. You’ll never escape.”

The fossil fuel witnesses’ initial remarks and responses to lawmakers’ questions were full of industry talking points. They advocated for “market-based solutions” like carbon taxes while failing to offer specifics. They also highlighted carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology and hydrogen—both of which progressive green groups have denounced as “false solutions”—as key to reaching a “lower-carbon future.”

While suggesting a long-term need for oil and gas, the executives claimed to believe in anthropogenic climate change and said fossil fuel emissions “contribute” to global heating. Some critics called them out for using that term, rather than “cause” or “drive.”

Using the the word “contribute” rather than cause, saidHuffPost environment reporter Chris D’Angelo, “downplays/dismisses the science, which shows they are the primary driver… Frankly, it’s climate denial—the very topic of this hearing.”

After inquiring about how long all four executives had been in their current roles, the panel’s ranking member, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), asked whether they had ever signed off on a climate disinformation campaign. They all said no—which experts and activists promptly disputed.

While progressives on the panel grilled the executives, Republicans repeatedly apologized to the CEOs for Democrats’ supposed “intimidation” efforts. Blasting the GOP lawmakers’ actions as “pathetic,” Henn said that “they really do see themselves as servants to Big Oil.”

The panel’s GOP members also tried to redirect attention to planet-heating activities of other countries, particularly China, and complained about President Joe Biden’s move to block the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, even inviting Neal Crabtree, a welder who lost his job when the project was canceled, to testify.

“The GOP’s strategy at this hearing is clear: It will not attempt to claim Big Oil *didn’t* mislead on climate,” tweeted climate reporter Emily Atkin of the HEATED newsletter. “Instead, the GOP is claiming Democrats are wasting time by focusing on climate change, and that it isn’t important to ‘everyday Americans.'”

Thanking Atkin for spotlighting the Republicans’ strategy, ClimateVoice noted that new polling shows the U.S. public does care about the issue. According to survey results released this week, a majority of Americans see climate as a problem of high importance to them and support Congress passing legislation to increase reliance on clean electricity sources.

Maloney, in her closing remarks Thursday, lamented that the hearing featured “much of the denial and deflection” seen in recent decades. She also called out the companies for not turning over requested documents, refusing to “take responsibility” for their contributions to the climate crisis, and continuing to fund groups like API. The chair vowed that her committee will continue its investigation.

Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

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Climate Solutions, Observation

Dems Call Fossil Fuel CEOs, Lobbyists to Testify About Climate Disinformation

“Oil and gas executives have lied to the American people for decades about their industry’s role in causing climate change. It’s time they were held accountable.” 

Democratic leaders on the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee sent letters Thursday inviting the heads of key fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups to testify before the panel about the industry’s contributions to climate disinformation in recent decades.

Applauded by advocates of holding polluters and their business partners accountable for fueling the worsening climate emergency, the letters come amid concerns about how corporate lobbyists may influence a bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better package—especially in the wake of a damning exposé on ExxonMobil earlier this summer.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who respectively chair the House panel and its Environment Subcommittee, wrote that “we are deeply concerned that the fossil fuel industry has reaped massive profits for decades while contributing to climate change that is devastating American communities, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and ravaging the natural world.”

“We are also concerned that to protect those profits, the industry has reportedly led a coordinated effort to spread disinformation to mislead the public and prevent crucial action to address climate change,” the pair continued.

They also expressed concern that such “strategies of obfuscation and distraction continue today,” noting that “fossil fuel companies increasingly outsource lobbying to trade groups, obscuring their own roles in disinformation efforts.”

“One of Congress’s top legislative priorities is combating the increasingly urgent crisis of a changing climate,” the lawmakers added. “To do this, Congress must address pollution caused by the fossil fuel industry and curb troubling business practices that lead to disinformation on these issues.”

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, BP America CEO David Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, Shell president Gretchen Watkins, American Petroleum Institute (API) president Mike Sommers, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Suzanne Clark (pdfs) now have a week to inform Democrats if they plan to willingly testify at the panel’s October 28 hearing.

Pointing to industry leaders’ past behavior, Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig said that “these polluters have long proven they’re more concerned with boosting their executives’ bottom lines than with protecting the climate. The only question is: will they defend their harmful actions before Congress? Or will they again refuse to answer to the American people?”

The Democrats also requested information from the firms, including internal communications and memos about climate science and related marketing as well as plans to reduce planet-heating emissions across the industry. If the letter recipients refuse to participate or turn over those materials, the panel’s leaders may issue subpoenas.

Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity, celebrated the letters in a statement that acknowledged other efforts to hold the industry accountable, including more than two dozen lawsuits filed by state and local governments in recent years.

“We applaud Chairs Maloney and Khanna for demanding that these executives answer for their history of climate deception,” he said. “Oil and gas executives have lied to the American people for decades about their industry’s role in causing climate change. It’s time they were held accountable. If the executives refuse to testify voluntarily, they should be subpoenaed.”

In a video released earlier this month, Khanna vowed that the panel’s probe of the fossil fuel industry’s role in climate disinformation “will be like the Big Tobacco hearings” of the 1990s.

Harvard University researcher Geoffrey Supran—whose academic publications include the first peer-reviewed analysis of ExxonMobil’s 40-year history of climate communications—said at the time that “it’s no surprise that Big Oil and Big Tobacco have used the same propaganda playbook to confuse the public and undermine political action, because they rely on many of the same PR firms and advertising agencies to do their dirty work.”

Ad and PR agencies are under mounting pressure to ditch fossil fuel clients for good, thanks in part to the Clean Creatives campaign supported by Fossil Free Media, both of which welcomed the letters.

“This is a landmark day in the climate fight,” said Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn, noting the impact of the tobacco hearings. “For decades, the fossil fuel industry has polluted our political process along with polluting our atmosphere. Exposing the industry’s disinformation is a critical step in holding it accountable for the damage it has done and clearing the way for meaningful change.”

Clean Creatives campaign director Duncan Meisel suggested that “this investigation is the beginning of the end of misleading fossil fuel advertising and PR in the United States.”

“For too long, this industry has used fake front groups, advanced greenwashing, and straight up deception to delay climate action, every time with the willing help of some of the biggest ad and PR firms in the world,” he said. “Reps. Khanna and Maloney are following in the footsteps of congressional investigations that devastated the reputations of tobacco companies and their advertisers. Fossil fuel companies and their agencies are now on notice that they are next.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under Creative Commons

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Finance, Observation, Politics

The Only Real Socialism in the US is Corporate Welfare

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We do have socialism in this country—but it’s not Democrats’ policies. The real socialism is corporate welfare.

You may have heard Republicans in Congress rail about how the Democrats’ agenda is chock-full of scary “socialist” policies. 

We do have socialism in this country—but it’s not Democrats’ policies. The real socialism is corporate welfare. 

Thousands of big American corporations rake in billions each year in government subsidies, bailouts, and tax loopholes—all funded on the taxpayer dime, and all contributing to higher stock prices for the richest 1 percent who own half of the stock market, as well as CEOs and other top executives who are paid largely in shares of stock. 

Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and big banks are the biggest beneficiaries of corporate welfare.

How? Follow the money. These corporations and their trade groups spend hundreds of millions each year on lobbying and campaign contributions. Their influence-peddling pays off. The return on these political investments is huge. It’s institutionalized bribery. 

An even more insidious example is corporations that don’t pay their workers a living wage. As a result, their workers have to rely on programs like Medicaid, public housing, food stamps and other safety nets. Which means you and I and other taxpayers indirectly subsidize these corporations, allowing them to enjoy even higher profits and share prices for their wealthy investors and executives.

Not only does corporate welfare take money away from us as taxpayers. It also harms smaller businesses that have a harder time competing with big businesses that get these subsidies. Everyone loses except those at the top. 

It’s more socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest. 

It should be ended.

I’m as sensitive as anyone to the sufferings of Afghans now, but I’ve had it with the sanctimony of journalists and pundits who haven’t thought about Afghanistan for 20 years—many of whom urged we get out—but who are now filling the August news hole with overwrought stories about Biden’s botched exit and Taliban atrocities. 

Yes, the exit could have been better planned and executed. Yes, it’s all horribly sad. But can we get a grip? The sudden all-consuming focus on Afghanistan is distracting us from hugely important stuff that’s coming to a head at home:

(1) Republican politicians and right-wing media worsening the surging Delta variant of COVID by fighting masks and vaccinations, as cities and school systems struggle to decide what to do;

(2) wildfires and floods consuming much of America, as House Democrats absurdly threaten to oppose Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget blueprint containing important measures to slow climate change;

(3) Texas on the verge of passing the nation’s most anti-democracy voting restrictions, adding to voter suppression measures in 24 other states, at the same time the “For the People Act” and the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act”—which would remedy these horrendous laws—languish in the Senate because Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema refuse to do anything about the filibuster. 

Enough sanctimony over Afghanistan. Enough about Biden’s falling approval ratings. We’ve had enough wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics and then Andrew Cuomo and now the airport in Kabul. Can we please focus on the biggest things that need and deserve our attention right now? The window of opportunity to do anything about them will close sooner than we expect. 

If we don’t take action now on COVID and the critical importance of vaccinations and masks, on climate change and Biden’s $3.5 trillion package, and on voter suppression and the necessity of the For the People and the John Lewis Voting Rights Acts, we may never. 

Originally published By ROBERT REICH on Common Dreams via Creative Commons

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Business, Stock Market

Shifting to a Sustainable Energy Infrastructure: Saudi Aramco’s IPO shares are a bad Investment for the Planet

Literally Trillions are Staked on a Carbon Nightmare Future

Saudi Aramco is Saudi Arabia’s largest national oil company and one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, corporations in the world. On Sunday, November 30th, 2019, Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority stated that Aramco is going to be turned into a publically traded corporation and start making initial public offers of 1 to 3 percent of its shares sometime in December.

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman initially boasted the Aramco’s worth at $2 trillion. Further research, however, deems the valuation somewhere between $1.3 and 1.7 trillion. Nevertheless, these enormous figures—mixed with the projected IPO of $8.53 per share—still make Aramco more fiscally valuable than Apple or Microsoft.

Putting Aramco in the public sector is a huge move for Saudi Ariabia’s economy and is inextricably linked to the Crown Prince’s “Vision 2030” socioeconomic reform plan for the kingdom. It will make oil a larger money-maker than it already is for the nation by attracting additional foreign investors and combatting the shift towards alternative energy sources.

At the same time, though, this move is not the most environmentally progressive, and although it creates a short-term economic boost for the country, it may not be sustainable in the long run.

Right now the world is trying desperately to reform its energy practices and emissions standards. The 2015 Paris Climate Accord outlined bold plans to address the global climate crisis and currently, the UN Climate Conference in Madrid is working on updating and evaluating those goals. A big part of these initiatives puts focus on transferring global energy away from fossil fuel burning and towards cleaner and more renewable sources and methods.

While Saudi Arabia has made some investments in alternative energy sources, it remains overwhelmingly focused on oil—its most profitable commodity. The nation’s slight investments in solar power are dwarfed compared to its ongoing oil extraction. Then, even when the country does employ solar energy, it often uses it to fund or power oil wells and refineries.

When asked about Aramco’s response to the Paris Climate Accord, the company’s Chief Executive Amin Nasser practically laughed it off, boasting that with all other parts of the world being held to stringent energy conditions, Aramco would easily become the global leader in gas.

Not a Question of When but rather How Fast can the World Switch off the Oil Pumps?

The corporation should not be so quick to celebrate, though. While the planet still has a long way to go when it comes to environmental protection and security, more investors are turning away from oil and starting to consider alternatives. With the scarcity and conflict surrounding the resource, oil is becoming less reliable. The recent surge in electric vehicle adoption is just one example of alternative energy sources affecting the oil economy.

Nasser responded to this observation by calling it a “crisis of perception” facing oil firms. Cynically, he explains that ideas of oil going away anytime soon is a highly exaggerated theory, and that fossil fuels remain the most secure form of energy.

Perhaps this is the case for now. But if big oil continues to pump the Earth without regard for ecological fragility, then there will eventually be nothing “secure” about the practice at all, and economic influence will mean quite little in the face of Armageddon. All humans will be affected, not just the “green” ones.

Even in less dramatic terms, studies suggest that “Peak Oil” will arrive at some point in the next twenty-five years. When this happens, it will severely hurt Aramco’s prices, as demand will go down and investors will have a greater economic incentive to move on from oil. The company will not seem so high and mighty when that happens. Geopolitical dangers will almost certainly rise.

All of this is not even to mention the socio-political risks that come with investing in Aramco. Environmental issues aside, Aramco still faces international competition with the U.S. and Russia, stagnant output for the past five years, warlike attacks from Iran, and a lack of corporate autonomy against the Saudi Arabian government.

From an immediate money-driven perspective, investing in Aramco might seem like an easy buck and a booming economic development for Saudi Arabia. However, money (like oil wells) can dry up quicker than one thinks, and when that happens, investors might be left with nothing in their pockets but a long list of political, sociological, and environmental problems.

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