Trump has emboldened fossil-fuel companies to drop the greenwashing, to go all out in denial of the crisis, and to begin climate-wrecking increases in production, reports John Clarke 

As the process of climate change has gone from an accumulating threat to an unfolding global disaster, those who profit from fossil-fuel capitalism have developed strategies to cover their tracks and perpetuate their destructive activities with the minimum opposition and interference. A number of tactical shifts have been taken over the years in order to further these objectives. 

With the return to power of Donald Trump, the pretences and tactical retreats on climate policy that marked the recent period have been largely put aside. At his inauguration ceremony in January, as Forbes put it, Trump ‘lost no time in nailing his pro-oil and gas credentials to the metaphorical White House mast.’ Declaring that the US faced an ‘energy emergency’, the incoming president told his audience that he would ensure that ‘America will be a manufacturing nation once again. We sit on the most oil and natural gas of any nation on earth, and we’re going to use it.’ 

Fossil-fuel playbook 

It has been well established that major oil companies were well aware of the climate impacts their activities would lead to long before there was any general understanding of these consequences. Georgetown University’s Institute for Environment & Sustainability, based in Washington DC, reported in 2023 that ‘popular concern for anthropogenic climate change did not emerge until the late 1980s, but formerly secret industry documents that are now available through the Climate Files database reveal that oil industry scientists were raising concern about oil’s impacts on the climate as early as the 1950s and 1960s.’ 

The report shows how the oil companies and other business interests worked together to ‘spread climate disinformation [and] oppose greenhouse gas regulations through collaboration across automotive, manufacturing, mining, and petroleum industries.’ Only when ‘a strengthening consensus among the scientific community and growing concern among the public, in the late 1990s and early 2000s’ forced a change in approach, did Big Oil begin ‘making public concessions to climate science and hinted at a commitment to mitigating the threats of climate change.’  

An article in Vox this month shows that the beef industry in the US played a very similar role to the fossil-fuel companies. By the late 1980s, it was understood that industrialised beef production was generating massive quantities of methane, ‘a greenhouse gas that accelerates climate change at a much faster pace than carbon dioxide’. Today, almost one-third of methane stems from beef and dairy cattle. 

At this time, leading representatives of the industry ‘began crafting a plan to defend itself against what they anticipated would be growing attacks over beef’s role in global warming and other environmental ills.’  The National Cattlemen’s Association (NCA) drafted ‘an internal 17-page memo’ that would not come to light for two decades. It took a ‘crisis management’ approach and its authors noted that public ‘relations activity directed toward key influencers is a fundamental thrust of this plan.’  

Only when it has become impossible to disregard climate change have fossil-fuel companies and their political agents changed direction and adopted strategies based on a grudging acceptance of reality. In 2023, Earth Justice pointed out that climate ‘change is here, and the fossil fuel industry knows it’s undeniable. So it’s switching up its playbook: by moving from denying climate change outright to delaying climate action through various forms of distraction, deceit, and false promises.’ 

There have been various components to this turn to ‘green capitalism’. One of them has focused on taking control of climate deliberations and diverting them in ways that don’t challenge Big Oil. Common Dreams reported last year that the ‘crushing influence of petrostates and fossil fuel industry lobbyists has rendered the annual United Nations climate conference unfit to deliver the kinds of sweeping changes needed to avert catastrophic warming.’ 

Astoundingly, it was reported that ‘at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the COP29 summit, giving the industry primarily responsible for the global climate emergency more representation than nearly every country present at the talks in Baku.’ The whole UN initiative on climate has been compromised and rendered ineffective in this way. 

Climate denial is back 

Trump’s return to the White House, however, has led to a decline in ‘greenwashing’ strategies and a renewed focus on climate denial, along with a brazen intransigence in the face of an escalating climate catastrophe.  

An article in Grist reports that, earlier this month, British Petroleum ‘announced that it was slashing more than $5 billion in planned green energy investments. It was a marked departure from the early 2000s, when the oil giant branded itself as “beyond petroleum,” and even 2020, when the company targeted a 20-fold increase in its renewables portfolio.’ BP’s CEO, Murray Auchincloss, showed remarkable candour in announcing this shift. He gleefully declared that this ‘is a reset BP, with an unwavering focus on growing long-term shareholder value.’ 

The scale of this changed approach can be seen in the fact that at ‘the same time that BP cut its renewables portfolio, it said it was going to invest $10 billion more in oil and gas. The company is now aiming to produce 2.4 million barrels per day of fossil fuels by 2030, which is a 60 percent jump from its 2020 target. That 900,000-barrel difference amounts to about 387,000 more metric tons of carnon dioxide each day — which is equivalent to around 90,000 gas-powered cars operating for a year.’ 

BP is by no means untypical and a series of oil companies are proceeding in this fashion, without the pretences and subterfuges that were being employed in the recent past. The Trump administration has undoubtedly provided this basis for a renewed confidence and swagger among those who are literally fuelling the climate crisis. 

Trump’s Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, a former fracking executive, recently delivered the opening plenary talk at CERAWeek, which Mother Jones describes as ‘a swanky annual conference in Houston, Texas, led by the financial firm S&P Global.’ Wright’s message to ‘the oil and gas bigwigs’ in attendance was that ‘we are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less.’ 

Wright’s talk had a very revealing focus in that he tackled head-on the task of justifying a course that can only spell the most appalling consequences for humanity. He described himself as a ‘climate realist’ and told the gathering that the ‘Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is, a global physical phenomenon that is a side-effect of building the modern world. Everything in life involves trade-off.’ 

The proposition that carbon emissions can continue and even increase, as a ‘trade-off’ that will allow populations to raise their living standards without producing the most disastrous results imaginable is, of course, delusional. Just last week, the Guardian reported that the ‘devastating impacts of the climate crisis reached new heights in 2024, with scores of unprecedented heatwaves, floods and storms across the globe, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.’ Yet, Wright’s views express the logic of the economic system he represents. 

The harsh reality is that fossil fuels remain the lifeblood of capitalism, even if their continued consumption spells death and destruction for hundreds of millions of people. A vast portion of capitalist investment is in oil and gas and the interests involved will not allow any timely transition away from the use of such fuels. 

The warped logic of Trump’s Energy Secretary is more forthright than the evasions and trickery engaged in by the advocates of green capitalism but there is no fundamental difference of opinion between them. The Roman historian, Cornelius Tacitus, wrote that ‘crime once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity’ and the climate criminals of the Trump administration are living proof of this, as they remove all barriers to the destructive pursuit of profit. 

Trump’s open embrace of climate vandalism has emboldened the leading representatives and proponents of fossil-fuel capitalism and made them even more reckless and determined. Yet, the impacts of climate change are growing ever more severe and the fight to stop rampant carbon emissions and secure a just transition that can sustain life has moved to an even more urgent and decisive stage.