Exxon Mobil CEO Rejects IEA’s Carbon Capture Claims

Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods has rejected the International Energy Agency’s recent claim that using wide-scale carbon capture to fight climate change was an implausible “illusion”, saying the same could be said about electric vehicles and solar energy.

“There is no solution set out there today that is at the scale to solve the problem,” Woods said on the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

“So, you could say that about carbon capture today, you could say that about electric vehicles, about wind, about solar. I think that criticism is legitimate for anything that we’re trying to do, to start with,” he said.

While few commercially viable carbon-capture projects exist due to high costs, EVs now make up about 13% of the global new vehicle market, and solar and wind deployments have been expanding rapidly.

Woods’ appearance marked the first time a CEO of fossil fuel giant Exxon (XOM.N) has attended one of the annual U.N.-sponsored climate summits, and reflected a growing effort among oil and gas companies worldwide to recast themselves as part of the solution to global warming, as opposed to a cause.

The future role of carbon capture technology and fossil fuels is a key issue at the conference.

The IEA, the West’s energy watchdog, issued a report on Nov. 27 just ahead of the COP28 gathering that said the fossil fuel industry was facing a “moment of truth” where producers had to choose between deepening the climate crisis, or shifting to clean energy.

Reuters/Hauwa Abu