ExxonMobil’s 2050 Net-Zero Pledge Is Laughable Greenwash

Source: ExxonMobil’s 2050 Net-Zero Pledge Is Laughable Greenwash

The headline on the ExxonMobil website claims “ExxonMobil aims to achieve net-zero emissions.” Click through and it says in greater detail that “ExxonMobil aims to achieve net-zero emissions from its operated assets by 2050.” It continues by noting, “This ambition applies to scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions.”

Many headlines read like the one in Reuters: “Exxon pledges net-zero carbon emissions from operations by 2050.” We might start with the point that net-zero targets disguise climate inaction and that when it comes to climate action, 2050 is the new never, but the ExxonMobil pledges are even more egregious because they only apply to “operated assets” and scope 1 and 2 emissions. That’s just a fraction of the bigger picture.

Readers may recall the famous The Guardian headline, “Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions.” It was covering the Carbon Majors Report from 2017, which listed the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced by 100 entities, but unlike The Guardian, the full report noted there were different “scopes.” The report said:

Scope 1 emissions arise from the self-consumption of fuel, flaring, and venting or fugitive releases of methane.¹

Scope 3 emissions account for 90% of total company emissions and result from the downstream combustion of coal, oil, and gas for energy purposes. A small fraction of fossil fuel production is used in non-energy applications which sequester carbon. [like plastics]¹

Scope 2 emissions come from off-site, such as buying electricity to run an operation and are pretty minor. As noted in our post on the report, for oil companies, scope 1 is the entity extracting and refining the fossil fuel and shipping it to the pumps, and scope 3 is us buying the gas, putting it in our cars, and turning it into CO2.¹