Exxon Chief to Trump: Don’t Withdraw From Paris Climate Deal

Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, cautioned President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday against withdrawing from the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions, saying Mr. Trump risked leaving a void at the negotiating table.

Mr. Woods, speaking at an annual U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, described climate negotiations as opportunities for Mr. Trump to pursue common-sense policymaking.

“We need a global system for managing global emissions,” Mr. Woods said in an interview with The New York Times in Baku. “Trump and his administrations have talked about coming back into government and bringing common sense back into government. I think he could take the same approach in this space.”

Mr. Woods, who also attended last year’s climate talks in Dubai, urged government officials to create incentives for companies to transition to cleaner forms of energy in a profitable way.

“The government role is extremely important and one that they haven’t been successfully fulfilling, quite frankly,” he said, noting that his company was obligated to generate profits for its shareholders.

Mr. Woods’s presence in a stadium teeming with diplomats is all the more noteworthy because of who is not here in Azerbaijan, a petrostate on the Caspian Sea that was once part of the Soviet Union. Many heads of state, including President Biden, have taken a pass, as have the leaders of several big oil companies like Shell and Chevron.

Hanging over this year’s negotiations is the election of Mr. Trump, who has falsely called global warming a hoax, encouraged oil companies to “drill, baby, drill” and vowed to withdraw from the Paris climate treaty — again.

Mr. Woods’s views on Paris are not new. Exxon also asked Mr. Trump not to withdraw from the treaty in 2017.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, Karoline Leavitt, said that he would pursue policies he campaigned on. “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,” she said in a statement. “He will deliver.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Mr. Woods was again seeking to dissuade Mr. Trump from withdrawing from the Paris agreement.

Earlier Tuesday, during a taping of a Bloomberg podcast, Mr. Woods sought to ease concerns about the effect Mr. Trump might have on efforts to address climate change.

“I’m not sure that any one administration is going to significantly advance the pace of the transition or conversely significantly slow the pace,” Mr. Woods said, calling the energy transition “a long-term investment.”

The Exxon chief also called for global standards to account for carbon dioxide emissions, a system that would serve as the basis for governments to set regulatory standards.

In that interview, hosted by the Atlantic Council, a research organization, Mr. Woods praised the Inflation Reduction Act — a law Mr. Trump has criticized — for encouraging companies to invest in cleaner forms of energy without directing them to pursue specific technologies.

Exxon is pursuing technologies that are similar to drilling and processing oil and gas. Those include harvesting lithium from briny water and using natural gas to make hydrogen.

Exxon is poised to spend around $3 billion this year on projects that provide alternatives to fossil fuels or reduce emissions, the Swiss bank UBS estimates. That amounts to about 11 percent of the company’s planned capital outlay for the year, a smaller share than many large oil companies expect to spend, according to the bank.

Exxon’s spending on projects related to the energy transition is poised to rise in the coming years, totaling more than $20 billion from 2022 through 2027.

Oil and gas companies’ participation in annual U.N. climate talks rankles some environmentalists who worry that they will press negotiators to preserve too big a role for fossil fuels in the energy industry.

For years, Exxon’s executives expressed doubt about whether greenhouse gas emissions were causing temperatures to rise, even though the company’s scientists accurately predicted how much burning fossil fuels would warm the climate.

Mr. Woods has defended the company, saying Exxon’s position has evolved with the scientific consensus. He has acknowledged the relationship between emissions from humanity’s use of fossil fuels and climate change. On Tuesday, he said that Exxon brought an important view to climate discussions.

“Some people can sit around and talk about it,” Mr. Woods said. “There are other people who are actually involved in doing it, and I think the perspective changes.”

The company has backed the Paris climate accord’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and committed to reducing its own emissions to net zero by 2050.

That goal does not include the greenhouse gases that are released when people burn Exxon’s fuels. The company also expects demand for oil and gas to remain stronger than most scientists believe is consistent with meeting the Paris target.

U.S. demand for oil and gas is likely to rise if Mr. Trump succeeds in spurring economic growth, Mr. Woods said. If consumption patterns shift, Exxon is prepared to pivot.

“Our strategy is robust to any number of future scenarios,” he said.

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