- 6/3/2025
Part 3: Delay, looks at the strategies used by the fossil fuel industry, including advancing natural gas as a cleaner energy source, in the hopes of slowing down the transition to renewable energy sources.
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00:00For more than 150 years, oil and gas has played a critical role in our society, improving
00:27human lives, raising standards of living, and enabling unprecedented economic growth.
00:33What do you do when your industry can no longer exist without creating catastrophes worldwide?
00:39The impacts of climate change are intensifying.
00:42It's important to understand the past.
00:44You can't understand where you are if you don't know how you got there.
00:47In a special three-part series, the epic story of our failure to tackle climate change,
00:53the whole world is heating up, and the role of the fossil fuel industry.
00:57The big oil knowingly spreads disinformation.
01:00Now, in the third and final part, big oil pivots to a new energy source.
01:05Renewables weren't quite there yet.
01:07Natural gas could provide continuous 24-hour generation.
01:11Doing something for the first time, taking advantage of this new resource, you don't always know what you don't know.
01:17And over time, what we learned is very, very scary.
01:20And the challenges that have delayed climate action.
01:22We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years.
01:26The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas.
01:32The global energy crisis exacerbated by Russia's war.
01:34At least 60 billion barrels of oil from reserves around the world.
01:38We all want a clean climate.
01:40But what we want more than that is to be able to fill up our cars below $4 a gallon.
01:44We're still very much in the fossil fuel aid.
01:47We continue to maintain a position that has evolved with science and is today consistent with the science.
01:53We won't solve the climate crisis unless we solve the misinformation crisis.
02:07We'll be looking at the solid climate crisis.
02:27Hey guys. Nice night, huh?
02:29there's this great irony of the Obama administration
02:34he comes in promising to be the climate president
02:40he's going to address these issues
02:43and at the same time we're in the middle of a recession
02:50and one of the few rays of job growth is in oil and gas
02:59nowhere is the promise of innovation greater
03:03than in american-made energy
03:06the country down on its heels and here comes the oil industry
03:10generating lots of oil generating tax revenue
03:13it was a great story for the oil industry to sell
03:16over the last three years
03:18we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration
03:23the potential for natural gas was huge
03:28we have a supply of natural gas that can last america nearly 100 years
03:33when obama said we had 100 years of natural gas
03:38we panicked because we knew the climate was changing so fast
03:43we didn't take the alternative path of drastically increasing investment in renewables
03:51thank you god bless you and god bless the united states of america
03:55it should have happened in the obama years
03:58and we've exacerbated climate change problem for 10 years when we could have been diminishing it
04:04the bible says no man can serve two masters
04:09well we kind of had two masters at that point
04:14we were trying to be a climate leader but we were trying to be an energy superpower
04:19it's impossible really to be both
04:21there are massive fracking booms happening in texas north dakota pennsylvania oh i mean just look at that
04:35it's much of the middle of this it's led to unprecedented expansion in towns from katula to beville
04:40during the early years of the obama administration despite widespread concern about climate change
04:53the fossil fuel industry was experiencing an historic boom
04:57with tens of thousands of new wells across the united states
05:01it was driven in large part by a new technology for extracting oil and natural gas
05:08it would be a turning point for the fossil fuel industry
05:13and the fight against climate change
05:16tony and graffia had helped make it happen
05:21i certainly didn't grow up questioning fossil fuels
05:26it was just 1950s usa everything was automatic and wonderful
05:33we didn't realize at the time fossil fuels were driving what we call western civilization
05:40and still today i value what fossil fuels have done for the world
05:48in the early 1980s engrafia was part of a team of u.s government engineers tasked to solve a problem
05:56u.s oil and natural gas production had just fallen off right off the end of the table
06:03since the oil embargo
06:05america was becoming increasingly dependent on imported oil and gas from unreliable sources
06:19after its own reserves declined
06:21there was a quest to unlock new domestic fossil fuels
06:27nobody
06:30had thought about
06:33spending a lot of money
06:35trying to get oil and gas out of shale
06:37nobody knew how to do it
06:39and most people in the industry
06:41the vast majority of the people in the industry said it couldn't be done
06:43and graffia's team began devising new ways to extract large deposits of oil and gas trapped in shale rock formations across america
06:54they called it fluid driven fracture now known as fracking
07:00even in this small piece of marcella shale there is stored methane
07:06which becomes natural gas when it's produced and if one were to estimate the total amount of methane
07:15thousands of square miles under all these states it's many many trillions of cubic feet of natural gas
07:23energy
07:26energy
07:27how do you get energy out of the earth
07:29it all comes by cracking rock
07:32oil embargo
07:33energy crisis
07:34crack rock
07:35help
07:36it would take decades before fracking technology was perfected
07:43the process was complicated and expensive
07:46and the urgency eventually abated
07:50that changed when hurricane katrina hit in 2005
07:57the latest information from the national hurricane center puts katrina on a path headed for new orleans
08:03we're expecting winds there up to 145 miles per hour with gusts up to 170
08:09the storm was part of an emerging trend of extreme weather events
08:13it devastated the gulf coast and damaged oil and gas production
08:20natural gas prices surged
08:23making it more attractive to use new drilling and fracking technologies to get oil and gas from shale formations
08:30you have this amazing irony of this huge hurricane
08:34this climate event causing natural gas prices to go up
08:38do you have a figure or an estimate of how high we might see natural gas prices go
08:45we've seen prices double over the last couple of years
08:49and then with hurricane katrina prices have doubled yet again
08:53all of a sudden these companies are saying wow you know we're getting huge profits
08:59the climate crisis was creating a huge market boom which was being solved by people going out and drilling more natural gas
09:07which was feeding into the climate crisis
09:09which was feeding into the climate crisis it was a self contained cycle
09:14wall street took note over the next several years investors would begin pumping billions of dollars into companies with fracking operations
09:22Russell gold covered the boom for the wall street journal and worked with us on this film
09:29most people in the oil and gas industry most reporters like myself that were covering it thought that oil and gas in the United States was over
09:36we had found all the good reserves we had drilled all the big wells but shale changed all that
09:43it was unexpected it was dramatic and it was lubricated by billions and billions of dollars coming out of wall street
09:51thanks to record-breaking US production natural gas will continue to be a bargain at Chesapeake Energy we explore for American natural gas
10:10no one would be more responsible for driving the fracking boom than Aubrey McClendon CEO of Chesapeake Energy
10:16Aubrey McClendon was a great visionary he was a bigger than life individual
10:23if there's one message I'd like to effectively communicate today
10:27it's that America is at the beginning of a great natural gas boom and this boom can
10:33he believed that natural gas was the fuel of the future and that's he called it that all the time
10:39the technological breakthrough that we have developed in finding gas from shales
10:46changes everything about what you think about natural gas scarcity in America
10:52with a growing awareness about fossil fuels effect on the climate
10:56McClendon believed that natural gas which releases less CO2 than oil or coal when burned
11:03could be marketed as part of the solution
11:06he said well what do you think you know he said do we need an association or an organization just focused on the gas opportunities out there
11:17so we started the Clean Skies Foundation
11:20it was just doing everything we possibly could to get out the message
11:24what if America had its own clean energy abundant and available for the next century or more and possibly indefinitely
11:34the fossil fuel industry tries to make this argument that we can be part of the solution
11:39every living thing a world of good
11:42we can be a force for good on climate that we'll go out and we'll drill the natural gas which is going to help us lower our emissions
11:50doing a world of good for our economy energy security and our irreplaceable planet Earth
12:01at the time most of the country's power was generated by coal
12:06McClendon saw an opportunity to position natural gas as a clean alternative
12:12he starts courting probably the most prominent environmentalist in the country
12:18Carl Pope at the Sierra Club
12:21we were working with Chesapeake to kill coal
12:24and they were providing us with financial support
12:27I think it was quite clear that Chesapeake's objective was to build markets for natural gas at the expense of coal
12:33the concept that we were trying to convey was to say
12:38eventually we have to be off all fossil fuels
12:41but we have to get off coal first oil second and gas third
12:45so we have the opportunity to replace a very dirty fossil fuel coal
12:51with a much cleaner fossil fuel natural gas for the next 20 or 30 years
12:54and that's going to make it even cheaper to decarbonize our economy
12:57now you're a major environmentalist
12:59with the Sierra Club behind him
13:01McClendon had laid out a powerful marketing strategy for natural gas
13:05a strategy that would be embraced by ExxonMobil
13:08X certainly marks the spot
13:13ExxonMobil announcing it is buying XTO Energy
13:16and it's a $41 billion deal including some debt
13:19ExxonMobil is making a bet here on natural gas
13:22in 2010 ExxonMobil purchased fracking company XTO for $41 billion
13:29overnight it had become America's largest natural gas producer
13:34but inside the company some engineers were concerned about the sudden move into fracking
13:41ExxonMobil felt that they had to get into the shale gas game
13:47in order for Wall Street to see them as a growth prospect
13:51Darlong Chang had joined ExxonMobil after getting his PhD in mechanical engineering
13:58He worked on conventional natural gas projects abroad
14:03before becoming part of the company's fracking push in the U.S.
14:09My peers when they were recruiting me
14:11they told me that ExxonMobil was going to be part of the energy transition over my career
14:16They talked about the excitement of having gas be a bridge fuel to the future of energy
14:23I think one of the biggest challenges that the world is facing today
14:27is to develop all the energy we need in an environmentally friendly way
14:32The fact that natural gas was much cleaner burning than coal
14:36that it produced half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal
14:40those are very appealing to me
14:42But Chang knew that the methane in natural gas had the potential to do significant damage
14:48if allowed to leak into the atmosphere
14:53Natural gas is primarily methane
14:55And methane, when it's leaked out into the atmosphere
14:58can have orders of magnitude more global warming impact than carbon dioxide
15:04Chang worried that the thousands of new, lightly regulated fracking operations in the U.S.
15:09could be leaking massive amounts of methane
15:12and turbocharge the climate crisis
15:15Shale gas was like the Wild West
15:18There was already a perception that these smaller operators were not acting responsibly with these shale gas wells
15:26I already felt that having many methane gas wells was a ticking time bomb for methane gas leaks
15:36The more engineering infrastructure, the more wells and the more pipes
15:42the more potential there is for leakage
15:45When they were marketing natural gas as clean energy
15:50they didn't really know what they were talking about
15:52because they were fixated on the idea that natural gas, when burned, produces half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal
16:00But without measurement devices to verify that you're not significantly leaking
16:08you can't be sure that your natural gas is actually giving you less of a global warming impact than coal
16:15The industry was not monitoring methane leakage
16:21so they did not have data about how much was leaking
16:24And there wasn't much appetite for management to measure methane leakage
16:29because if they found out there was a problem, they would have to do something about it
16:40At the time, ExxonMobil and others in the industry said they were working to reduce methane emissions
16:46which were already within limits set by the EPA
16:50But on the ground, some in the environmental community were witnessing widespread leaks
17:00I am hunting for methane that is escaping from oil and gas facilities
17:07because that's what I do, I'm a methane hunter
17:11Sharon Wilson worked at an environmental watchdog group in Texas
17:17documenting methane emissions
17:23All of these pieces of equipment have got leaks
17:30There's a lot of methane going off the flare
17:38This is just a really, really dirty site
17:42This is an optical gas imaging camera
17:51and it makes the invisible methane and volatile organic compounds from oil and gas facilities
17:58It makes those visible
18:00These emissions, what's coming out of oil and gas sites
18:08The fact that it's invisible has helped them be able to expand
18:13and helped them maintain that narrative of being clean
18:18and when that is not the case
18:21The tanks are venting
18:23Wilson traveled the country
18:25gathering evidence of methane leaks at fracking sites
18:29including ExxonMobil wells
18:32We need to move about where that telephone pole is
18:36She'd send her findings to regulators and the press
18:40It's just disbelief that you can show someone video after video
18:50proof after proof after proof after proof
18:53and they still do nothing
18:55I sure can't compete with the oil and gas industry PR budget
19:01that they use to pump propaganda at us
19:05That tank is emitting a lot of methane
19:10I'm showing their dirty secrets that can't be seen
19:14without this optical gas imaging camera
19:21ExxonMobil would not grant us any interviews
19:23In a statement, it said it has been an industry leader
19:26in the effort to reduce methane emissions
19:29and has been advancing technology to detect leaks
19:36As Sharon Wilson was sounding the alarm
19:39a growing number of scientists were waking up to the dangers of methane
19:43including the man who'd helped pioneer the process of fracking
19:50I became very much more concerned about climate change
19:55when I realized what shale gas and oil was going to unleash
20:00That's the great word, unleash
20:04This is trite
20:06Unleash a tsunami of oil and gas
20:08Yes, that's what it did
20:10That's when I started feeling
20:14contradictory regret and pride
20:19Pride that we had done good engineering work
20:22to help somebody eventually figure out how to do it
20:24Regret that we had figured
20:26we had helped somebody figure out how to do it
20:28By going to shale
20:32We're going to prolong the fossil fuel industry
20:36And by prolonging the fossil fuel industry
20:40we're going to exacerbate climate change
20:43By now, Tony Ingrafio was a civil engineering professor at Cornell University
20:54and had spent years advising oil and gas companies
20:58In 2011, he and colleagues published a critical report on the climate impact of fracking
21:05What Bob Howarth and I locked onto was this very crucial point
21:09which is it's not just CO2 that's driving climate change
21:13It's also methane
21:16The paper said the climate impact of shale gas is such that it's worse than coal
21:26Worse than oil
21:29And the reaction to the paper was disturbing
21:34I had never been a co-author of a paper that created a political firestorm
21:43The criticism came from many sides
21:46including the National Academy of Sciences
21:48and the leading industry group, America's Natural Gas Alliance
21:53They claimed the report had overestimated the level of methane leaks
21:58and overstated methane's impact as a greenhouse gas
22:02At first we were pilloried, then we were ignored
22:05We had to endure a lot of personal attacks
22:09for no good reason
22:11I can understand people saying to me, you're a traitor
22:16You took their money for 25 years
22:21You did their research
22:23and now you're saying stop
22:25Yeah, okay, I am
22:32Criticism of the Cornell report also came from another academic institution
22:41MIT's influential Energy Initiative
22:44which had just published its own report promoting natural gas
22:48as a bridge to get away from burning coal
22:51and a way to reduce CO2 emissions
22:54Methane emissions are very important greenhouse gas that needs to be addressed
22:59And I noticed that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry
23:02are actually a minority of methane emissions
23:06There's some very, very tough problems
23:08Agriculture, dairy farms, enormous methane emitters
23:14Fortunately, in contrast to carbon dioxide
23:17methane has a relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere
23:21That doesn't mean one should ignore it
23:24It means that one better eliminate new emissions
23:27Ernest Moniz led MIT's Future of Natural Gas study
23:32which said the Cornell work was based on unsubstantiated estimates
23:36Moniz would not talk about it in our interview
23:40Nor would he answer questions about the funding for the study
23:44other than to say it was transparent
23:46The point is, we always believe in transparency
23:50And so that's, yeah
23:57The MIT report's major sponsor was Aubrey McClendon's American Clean Skies Foundation
24:03We really wanted MIT in particular because they had been the authoritative source testifying before Congress
24:11on all these other energy
24:13And we thought, we want the gold standard
24:16And we said, we believe this is the next big thing
24:20Denise Bode was on the advisory committee for the MIT study
24:24We made our case that it was a valid emerging issue that they could add credibility to
24:31And then they accepted it
24:36Bolstered by the MIT study, the industry narrative on natural gas would take hold in Washington
24:44I have the high privilege and the distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States
24:50It became part of President Obama's 2012 State of the Union address
25:00Where he unveiled his ambitious new energy policy
25:09This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy
25:13That develops every available source of American energy
25:19He would push for investments in renewable energy
25:22But he also doubled down on oil and natural gas
25:26We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years
25:34And my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy
25:42Natural gas from an economic perspective
25:47The costs that were passed on consumers in terms of lower energy bills was a net plus
25:53And then we saw that fitting squarely in the climate agenda
25:58Renewables weren't quite there yet
26:01The nuclear projects were just proving to be too expensive
26:06And natural gas could provide continuous 24-hour generation
26:12Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America
26:18We became an oil and gas country
26:21It affected our politics, it affected our economy
26:25And it begins to really affect kind of how we look at the world
26:29The United States looks at the world
26:31The U.S. had become the largest producer of natural gas in the world
26:37Helping spark a decline in CO2 emissions
26:40Even as studies were piling up showing a dangerous rise in methane emissions
26:45Doing something for the first time, taking advantage of this new resource
26:51You don't always know what you don't know
26:53And over time, what we learned about methane emissions as it relates to natural gas
26:59Is very, very scary
27:01Heather Zeichel would go on to advise the natural gas industry
27:06Then, lobby for renewables
27:09I think the Obama administration tried to be very conscious of everything
27:13All the implications of the shale revolution
27:17But at the time, I think early Obama administration years
27:21We didn't have access to the kinds of information that we would have liked to
27:26And needed to have had to take the proper regulatory steps
27:29To ensure as safe and climate-friendly production as possible
27:33At MIT, Ernest Moniz says they've also learned a lot since their early research
27:44Are you aware how large the methane leaks could be or would be when producing natural gas?
27:51No, I think it's come much more into focus recently
27:55We were concerned about leaks
27:58But I think the quantitative scale of the issue has become more clear in recent years
28:05With better measurement devices
28:07Including atmospheric measurements
28:09Which are now becoming much more commonplace
28:15Moniz would become energy secretary in Barack Obama's second term
28:19Where he helped advocate for the natural gas boom
28:23But by then, natural gas had lost its support from the Sierra Club
28:28And Carl Pope, who had allowed the group to take millions of dollars from Chesapeake Energy
28:34The natural gas industry
28:36Excuse me, the gas industry
28:37But you know, they've got
28:38They've trained me to call it the natural gas industry
28:40There's nothing natural about it
28:41I didn't understand how strong they were
28:43I thought the big player was oil
28:46I thought gas was kind of a junior cousin
28:48Gas turns out to have an awful lot of political strength
28:52And Americans had been more fully sold on the myth that gas was green
29:02Firefighters are worried that a deadly Southern California wildfire
29:05Could continue to spread this afternoon
29:07Nine major wildfires that are burning right now
29:10Across the state of California
29:122012 is shaping up to be one of the worst fire seasons on record
29:16By the second term of the Obama administration
29:22His administration was starting to get more serious about climate
29:28You know, if sort of it's climate versus energy production
29:31He's starting to lean more on climate
29:33President Obama, do the right thing
29:37There had been mounting public pressure to take on the industry
29:42Stop the pipeline, yes we can
29:45There really was a multi-pronged attack on the oil and gas industry
29:49But specifically at this fundamental nature of the oil and gas industry
29:55Stop the pipeline
29:56You've been around for a long time
29:58But your products are problematic
30:01And you've known that they've been problematic
30:03You don't deserve to continue operating in the long term
30:07Obama would begin a major climate push
30:10That would lead to the historic Paris Agreement in 2015
30:14In Paris this morning a potential landmark deal is being revealed on climate change
30:19The first global agreement to limit carbon
30:21Under the binding international treaty
30:23Countries pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions
30:26The Paris Agreement is adopted
30:30I've come here personally
30:32As the leader of the world's largest economy
30:34And the second largest emitter
30:37To say that the United States of America
30:39Not only recognizes our role in creating this problem
30:44We embrace our responsibility to do something about it
30:49Back at home
30:51The Obama administration was already taking steps to meet the treaty's obligations
30:56Proposing new climate regulations
30:58Including limits on methane gas emissions
31:02He was pursuing a major plan to move away from fossil fuels like coal
31:07And promote renewables like wind and solar
31:10It was called the Clean Power Plan
31:14President Obama's Clean Power Plan
31:17The idea was that, you know, by 2030
31:22Could reduce the carbon emissions by 32% compared to 2005 levels
31:29That was an ambitious, ambitious effort
31:33ExxonMobil and others in the fossil fuel industry
31:36Had publicly come out in support of the Paris Agreement
31:40But almost immediately
31:42Obama's new climate agenda came under attack from Republicans around the country
31:50He declared a war on fossil fuels
31:52It's all about an anti-fossil fuel strategy
31:56To shut down coal generation and fossil fuel generation
31:59And the generation of electricity
32:00And you should be very concerned about that
32:02Because what is it going to be replaced with?
32:04If it's renewables, wind
32:06The cost of that is going to be insurmountable for this country
32:09And I'm so thankful that we have attorneys general across this country
32:12Who have been on the front line holding the president accountable
32:15As he's acting in that fashion
32:17It may be the most critical time in our nation's history
32:22To have a group of conservative, rule of law, Republican attorneys general in office
32:27These issues matter
32:28Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt rallied a coalition of like-minded Republican AGs
32:34Whether it's involving fighting the EPA
32:36Fighting the National Labor Relations Board
32:38The coalition was backed by coal, oil and natural gas companies
32:42And their allies
32:44Including ExxonMobil and Koch Industries
32:47We are pro-business
32:49We believe
32:50The oil and gas industry, they shifted into counter-attack
32:53They were not going to let someone else run the narrative
32:55So they fought back, you know, with tooth and nail
32:58Every Republican attorney general matters
33:01The attorneys general sued the administration
33:04Claiming the federal government was overstepping its authority
33:07And infringing on states' rights
33:09In my state, I've filed 30 different lawsuits against EPA
33:13Almost every one of those has been in concert
33:15In collaboration with the other attorneys general
33:17They argued that methane emissions from oil and gas
33:23Had actually been going down in the U.S.
33:25Even though numerous studies showed them rising
33:29Natural gas is a key opportunity to further improve environment
33:35Methane emissions are down in the United States
33:37Yet they're pursuing a methane regulatory regime
33:41Why do we need to go out and regulate it even more than it already is?
33:48The industry came out fighting those methane regulations like crazy
33:54They said that they didn't need rules
33:58They could do this voluntarily
34:00I'm going to just set up here
34:02They were marketing natural gas as part of the climate solution
34:06All the while, I was collecting more and more evidence
34:10Out on the ground, out in the middle of it
34:12Of these horrible, horrible emissions
34:15I went to D.C. more than once
34:21And testified for the Obama rules
34:25The industry was saying one thing
34:28And I was presenting this evidence
34:31That showed that what they were saying was not true
34:35It was never true
34:42The industry was also going after another key part of Obama's agenda
34:48The push to support renewable energy sources
34:52We were going gangbusters
34:53Trying to put as many products in the ground as possible
34:55I mean, it seemed like the greatest time to be in renewables
35:00Patrick Woodson had been building wind farms across the U.S. for years
35:04With bipartisan support
35:07Both parties were talking about how great wind was
35:10And how great renewables were
35:12Then you started to see the political camps shift
35:15And all of a sudden Democrats became for renewable expansion
35:17And many Republicans became against
35:19Obama's Clean Power Plan was giving wind and solar a financial boost
35:25Against less expensive fossil fuels like natural gas
35:29It would cause a long-lasting backlash
35:34The false promise of renewable energy in Texas is taking billions of dollars from consumers and taxpayers
35:41More than $13 billion of your money is being diverted to government-subsidized wind farms
35:46There started to emerge national opposition to projects
35:49Negatively impacting property values and the environment
35:52While at the same time
35:53Groups were banding together
35:55That were funded in large part by certain members of the oil and gas community
35:59All of a sudden you'd realize there was a playbook now
36:05They generally would start with the idea that the turbines were too noisy
36:11That they were eyesores
36:15Eventually if they couldn't get traction with those arguments
36:17They would move on to the
36:19They're dangerous
36:20They cause disease
36:22There's not a study behind them
36:25Most of their were efforts to kind of derail local permitting
36:30Ultimately they would also try and put roadblocks into how you built them
36:36You know, create distance barriers or noise barriers
36:39Or other things to make it harder to put projects together
36:45When you start seeing massive lobbying efforts
36:48Backed by fossil fuel interests
36:52Or conservative think tanks
36:53Or the Koch brothers
36:55Pushing for new laws to roll back renewable energy standards
36:59Or prevent new clean energy businesses from succeeding
37:03That's a problem
37:09Charles Koch has said he was not trying to prevent clean energy from succeeding
37:14And he was all for any kind of energy business that could succeed in the marketplace
37:21ExxonMobil did not respond to questions about its support for the Republican AGs that opposed the Clean Power Plan
37:28But said it backs a variety of organizations that promote sound public policy
37:35Obama's Clean Power Plan would get stalled in the legal fight with the Attorneys General
37:41And his presidency would end with his climate agenda in peril
37:47The 45th President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump
37:53The next president would finish it off
37:58We will determine the course of America and the world for many, many years to come
38:08Mr. Trump, who once called global warming a hoax, signed a sweeping executive order this week
38:14Calling for regulators to rewrite President Obama's climate change policies
38:19Two months after he became president, Donald Trump joined Scott Pruitt
38:24His pick to head the EPA
38:27To kill President Obama's Clean Power Plan
38:31Okay
38:33Trump immediately scrapped that plan
38:37So that dampened any growth that would have come from that effort
38:42We had to sort of go on the defensive again
38:46Trump's vocal opposition to renewables and lack of faith in science and technology
38:52Were big concerns for a number of us
38:56There's been a change of direction
38:58The president has sent a very clear message that the last eight years where we had to choose between jobs and the environment
39:05Those days are over
39:06The war on coal ended
39:07The war on fossil fuels ended
39:08All right
39:09Yeah, it's good to see you
39:10Thank you so much
39:11And you look at the Trump administration, who they brought in
39:13Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon
39:17Heading up the Department of Energy, Rick Perry, a former governor of Texas
39:21There were a lot of friends of the oil and gas industry that went to Washington, D.C. with the Trump administration
39:27And how about these Democrats, they want to get rid of oil
39:33They want to get rid of natural gas
39:36They want to go to wind
39:38Oh, darling
39:39I just can't watch the show tonight
39:41The wind, it just stopped blowing
39:51Trump attempted to roll back the Obama climate agenda
39:54His administration delayed or repealed more than two dozen environmental rules and regulations
40:01Including those on methane emissions
40:04A reversal of tougher Obama-era standards for rules on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy
40:11A plan that would dramatically weaken pollution limits on coal-fired power plants
40:15New rules making it easier for oil and gas companies to release methane
40:24Pressure on the industry eased off even more when President Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement
40:29We withdrew from the one-sided, horrible, horrible, economically unfair
40:36Close your businesses down within three years
40:40Don't frack, don't drill, we don't want any energy
40:45The horrible Paris climate accord
40:48That killed American jobs and shielded foreign polluters
40:54To pull out raises a question of where does the whole effort to reduce emissions go
41:03That sent a clear message globally that the United States was not going to play a role as a leader on climate
41:11I mean, those were very good years for the oil and gas industry in the United States
41:15The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world
41:24The industry's success would continue into a new presidential administration
41:36We've won with the most votes ever cast for the presidential ticket
41:43Despite growing pressure to move away from fossil fuels
41:47Plans have been unveiled to rewire the global financial sector
41:51450 firms and financial institutions which control $130 trillion
41:56Have pledged to stop investing in fossil fuels
41:59And despite demands for accountability
42:02Fossil fuel companies that deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of climate change
42:09Should be, must be, held accountable
42:12Across the country, Attorneys General, this time Democrats
42:16Have been filing lawsuits against ExxonMobil and other companies
42:20The Minnesota Attorney General is suing big oil companies
42:23Claiming they lied to Minnesota consumers about climate change
42:27ExxonMobil has fought back
42:29Claiming the litigation is politically motivated and without merit
42:34But the pressure is continuing in the courts
42:40And now in Congress
42:42A hearing on Capitol Hill today
42:44The CEOs of the world's biggest oil companies
42:47Shell, Exxon, Chevron and BP
42:49A landmark hearing that puts a spotlight on the role fossil fuels
42:53Have played in accelerating climate change
42:55Apparent knowledge of it, disinformation, misinformation
43:02The committee will come to order
43:04This is a historic hearing
43:06For far too long, big oil has escaped accountability
43:10For its central role
43:12In October 2021
43:14Top oil executives were questioned under oath
43:17About the industry's long history of casting doubt on fossil fuel driven climate change
43:21For decades
43:23We won't solve the climate crisis unless we solve the misinformation crisis
43:29I now recognize Mr. Khanna, who is the chairman of the subcommittee on the environment
43:35Thank you Madam Chair
43:37First let me thank
43:38We initiated the investigation to find out what the misinformation was
43:44What these companies knew, when they knew it
43:46And it marks the beginning of scrutiny on them
43:50They've been able to avoid it, duck it, and not have to deal with it
43:54And now they're realizing they're not going to get away with this
43:58What do you have to say to America's children born into a burning world?
44:04Find it in yourself today to tell the truth
44:08It will be better for your company's futures
44:11And it will be better for humanity's future
44:14My name is Darren Woods
44:17I'm the chairman and chief executive officer of ExxonMobil Corporation
44:21ExxonMobil provides an essential component of modern society
44:25Affordable, reliable, and abundant energy
44:29ExxonMobil has long recognized that climate change is real
44:32And poses serious risks
44:35But there are no easy answers
44:38ExxonMobil is committed to being part of the solution
44:42Our scientists
44:44It was nice kind of political theater
44:47Democrats calling the big oil and gas companies before them
44:51Questioning them about their history with climate, what they're doing right now
44:55I don't even want to argue that, Mr. Woods, I don't even want to argue that
44:58Can you just acknowledge that it was a mistake?
45:00I don't think it's fair to judge something
45:02I'm sure Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon
45:05Doesn't like to be called before Congress and yelled at and berated
45:09But I also don't think he's losing sleep over it
45:11If he is losing sleep, he's probably losing sleep over whether his investors
45:16Really want to stick with Exxon over the long term
45:19And whether they have a plan to make money in a world where
45:22You know, maybe oil and gas is a declining source of energy
45:27We launched a low carbon solutions business to commercialize carbon capture and other technologies
45:34In his testimony, Woods touted ExxonMobil's investment in technology to reduce CO2 emissions
45:40Carbon capture and storage can remove more than 90% of CO2 emissions from these carbon intensive
45:48ExxonMobil has announced plans to spend billions on technology that captures CO2 and stores it in the ground
45:55Just as the industry did with natural gas years before
45:59They're promoting it as a climate solution
46:01It's not at all surprising that fossil fuel companies would promote ideas and policies that enable the continued use of fossil fuel so that they can sell these fossil fuels
46:16Charles Harvey is an expert on carbon storage and was a scientific advisor to a carbon storage company
46:24He calls the industry's current carbon capture push a false solution
46:29Because it is diverting needed investment away from renewable energy sources
46:36There's sort of a happy story here that carbon capture and sequestration is a way to reduce emissions
46:44And keep our existing fossil fuel companies going
46:49But it's not actually the direction to go
46:53It's sort of the easy direction to propose to go
46:56But it's not the direction to go to actually stop climate change or prevent global warming
47:09A dire warning and a stark reality
47:13There's really one key message that emerges
47:17We are out of time
47:19Drive, bro!
47:20Atmospheric methane is skyrocketing
47:25The International Energy Agency says the world needs to stop drilling for oil and gas to save the planet
47:34The warnings about climate change are at their most intense ever
47:39But the industry is now raising its own intense warnings
47:46About the perils of moving away from fossil fuels
47:51Everybody is saying that we need to be conscious about climate
47:56Yeah, I agree
47:58But there's consequences to actions
47:59Sharif Suki is one of the titans of the natural gas export business in the US
48:07I think we're dealing with a world where we've decided to make the hydrocarbon industry the enemy
48:13Because we've convinced ourselves that we must decarbonize
48:17His company, along with ExxonMobil and others, are embarking on massive natural gas expansion projects
48:28Nobody has been confronted with what the cost of this energy transition is
48:38You still need to increase energy by 50% in order to satisfy the aspiration of 90% of the world
48:4585% of the world's energy is hydrocarbons
48:50There is no realistic way by which you can say
48:54We're going to eliminate hydrocarbons out of the energy mix
48:57Renewables, it's about 5%
49:01So before it becomes a significant piece of the energy mix
49:06It's going to take decades
49:08It's not going to happen overnight
49:09And unpredictable world events, like the war in Ukraine, make it even harder
49:20As a global energy crisis emerges, exacerbated by Russia's war in Ukraine
49:26Oil prices have been significantly impacted by the war in the last few weeks
49:29The economic toll on Americans only getting worse
49:34President Biden is acutely aware of this, he has said he will do everything he can
49:39In his 2022 State of the Union address, President Biden outlined his response to the new energy crisis
49:45Tonight, I can announce the United States has worked with 30 other countries to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the world
49:57America will lead that effort
50:01Releasing 30 million barrels of our own strategic petroleum reserve
50:05And we stand ready to do more if necessary, unite it with our allies
50:16At the same time, the president is pursuing a climate agenda more aggressive than any of his predecessors
50:24Pushing the US to cut greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible by 2050
50:30A goal known as net zero
50:35The irony of a climate president and presidents who are pushing for more climate action
50:43Is that we all want a clean climate
50:46But what we want more than that is to be able to fill up our cars below $4 a gallon
50:52And when prices start to creep up, people get unhappy
50:54The way I think about it is that we're still very much in the fossil fuel age
51:03You know, as much as they talk an aspirational game about net zero by 2030 or 2040
51:11We're not there yet, and a lot can get in the way
51:14As we sit here in 2022
51:17We still need oil
51:21I'm terrified that we're not going to do nearly enough
51:25Fast enough
51:27The clock is ticking
51:29It's been ticking for some time
51:31I'm not terribly optimistic that America is going to get its act together
51:45In a way that's going to allow us to kind of make a meaningful difference
51:48I'm worried we wasted the decade
52:04And now we're playing catch-up
52:08What climate change means to me is looking in the eyes of my grandchildren
52:22And wondering what kind of hell they're going to pay
52:25Go to pbs.org slash frontline
52:38This is just a really, really dirty site
52:42By prolonging the fossil fuel industry, we're going to exacerbate climate change
52:46For more of our reporting on climate change, including 10 years of documentaries on environmental threats
52:53Connect with Frontline on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
52:56And stream anytime on the PBS video app, YouTube, or pbs.org slash frontline
53:01Go to pbs.org slash frontline
53:31For more on this and other Frontline programs, visit our website at pbs.org slash frontline
53:46To water Frontline's The Power of Big Oil on DVD
53:50Visit Shop PBS or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS
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