Cop29, if even Exxon asks Trump to remain in the Paris Agreement

The CEO of the US giant, Darren Woods, spoke from Cop29 in Baku.Exxon plans to invest more than $20 billion in the transition by 2027.

We haven't even reached the halfway point and Baku she's already the Cop of the Upside Down.Donald Trump's victory in the presidential elections in the United States contributed to shuffling the cards even before they began, placing a gigantic question mark on the geopolitical structure that is forming the backdrop and not only to the climate work underway in Azerbaijan.The register, long, too long, of the absences of the heads of state and government at COP29 - starting with outgoing president Joe Biden, passing through Ursula von der Leyen, Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, all leading the “heavyweights” in terms of emissions – have significantly reduced their scope.The words spoken on Tuesday by Ilham Aliyev, the autocratic president of Azerbaijan who defined gas and oil as “a gift from God” they clarified Baku's positions urbi et orbi, fueling a climate of challenge towards transition policies without missing an opportunity to flex their muscles.But it was other words that made this climate conference even more surreal.

The words of Darren Woods (Exxon) in Baku

Also on Tuesday, Darren Woods, CEO of the US oil giant Exxon Mobil, asked future President Trump not to retreat fromParis climate agreement, which commits the signatory countries to reduce emissions of climate-changing gases:“We need a global system for global emissions management.– he said Woods to the New York Times from Baku – Trump and his administrations have talked about returning to government and bringing common sense back to government.I think he could take the same approach to the climate."It is not the first time that the Exxon leader has expressed himself in these terms towards Trump. Even in 2017, the day after his first election, had asked in vain not to withdraw from the agreement.

Woods' words weigh even more if you consider that the absences do not only concern the aforementioned heads of state, but also the top management of oil companies.On the Caspian Sea, in fact, the senior officials of large companies such as Shell and Chevron are not present, exponents of that sector which appeared galvanized by the election of Trump and his “Drill, baby drill”, the exhortation with which Trump accompanied all his promises to encourage the fossil fuel sector throughout the election campaign.

During the rallies the tycoon widely criticized theInflation Reduction Act, the "container" of the environmental policy promoted by the Biden administration, and even federal bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency - which is responsible for protecting the health of ecosystems - have expressed concern about the possible cuts in funding that the future administration could bring with you.However, according to Woods, Trumpian propaganda with strongly anti-scientific tones could soften with the installation of the new administration:“I'm not sure that there are administrations that will significantly increase the pace of the transition or, conversely, significantly slow it down,” Woods told Bloomberg.

Exxon's plans to invest in the energy transition

The making itself heard by one of the main oil companies in the world is motivated by the huge investments that Exxon has directed towards projects for the energy transition and that a paradigm shift - "The new world order" with which Putin commented on Trump's election - risks going up in smoke.According to estimates by the Swiss bank UBS, Exxon it would be ready to spend around 3 billion dollars in projects that provide alternatives to fossil fuels or reduce emissions.An amount that is equivalent to approximately 11 percent of the capital outlay planned by the company for the whole of 2024.However, UBS specifies that these are still modest numbers when compared to the even more massive efforts of other companies in the same sector.For this reason, he estimates that Exxon's spending on projects related to the energy transition is expected to increase in the coming years, for a total of more than $20 billion from 2022 to 2027.

As expected, many environmentalists have harshly attacked the company, attributing the new positions to the need to safeguard the multinational's new strategic assets.Just last year one published study in the scientific journal Science and based on internal company documents had revealed that the company had available since the 1970s a pretty accurate model on the long-term effects of fossil fuels on the climate.That hasn't stopped Exxon executives from arguing the opposite for decades, expressing doubt that greenhouse gas emissions were causing temperatures to rise and lobbying to do so.In this regard, Darren Woods defended the company, stating that Exxon's position has evolved with scientific consensus.

The absences of world leaders at COP29 risk being costly

This does not mean that the appeal to Trump not to withdraw from the Paris Agreement sends a significant signal because discordant with the granite compactness which has characterized the narratives on support for Trump, in particular that of fossil fuel companies.And perhaps it is precisely these "infiltrations", represented by the interests deriving from investments in the energy transition made by the energy giants, that can give a boost, albeit biased, to the debate on the climate and the negotiations underway in Baku.In this, the absence of politics risks weighing heavily, giving third parties the opportunity to sit at the negotiating tables without the representatives of the individual states and, therefore, of the voters.