ExxonMobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods has said the company is investing in new technology to reduce carbon emissions. he however said it would continue to produce oil and gas to meet market demand.
European leaders looking to tackle climate change should look to U.S. policy and “let the market work” to avoid driving companies away with prescriptive regulations.
“I think it’s a huge mistake to be picking winners and losers and focusing on specific technologies,” Woods told the CEO Norway’s Wealth Fund, Nicolai Tangen, on his podcast. “Instead, we should be looking more broadly at letting the markets figure out which solutions provide the most emissions reductions for the lowest cost.”
Europe has been working with a greater sense of urgency since the Biden administration last year passed its Inflation Reduction Act, with $370 billion in tax subsidies to cut carbon emissions.
The package is turbo-charging interest in carbon capture and storage technologies, which for years have been considered too expensive and prone to failure. Exxon, which has pledged to spend $17 billion through 2027 on low-carbon initiatives, is among the companies ramping up plans to capture emissions.
