Governments urged to act after oil giants accused of misleading public
Campaigners have urged governments to intervene after oil companies were accused of misleading the public about their commitment to reducing carbon emissions.
Oil and gas companies including Britain’s Shell and BP were urged to “stop their deception” this week as the US House committee on oversight and reform released documents showing that oil industry executives privately downplayed their public messages on efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
The memo claimed that internal BP documents highlighted how carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a nascent technology that involves inserting CO2 emissions into underground rock formations – could “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond”.
Congressional investigators also unearthed an internal Shell email discussing carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) in which an executive said: “We want to be careful to not talk about CCUS as prolonging the life of oil, gas or fossil fuels writ large.”
The committee said internal Shell messaging guidance – developed to “insulate Shell” from lawsuits about “greenwashing” and “misleading investors” on the climate crisis – calls on employees to emphasise that net zero emissions is “a collective ambition for the world” rather than a “Shell goal or target”.
The guidance tells employees: “Please do not give the impression that Shell is willing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to levels that do not make business sense.”
In separate documents, the oil companies Exxon and Chevron appeared to ask the industry-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) to “remove language that potentially commits members to enhanced climate-related governance, strategy, risk management, and performance metrics and targets” and to
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