Can We Trust Fossil Fuel Companies? Interview w/Shell CEO — The Problem With Jon Stewart — Apple TV+

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Energy companies play an enormous role in that. Nobody has more influence with the government on mandates. And so if the fossil fuel industries truly believed the story that they're telling us, then it would behoove them to be lobbying fiercely for these mandates. And they are not. And they're doing the opposite. The industry fought that. I mean, that's, you know, if you look at... Nobody haven't. Well, API has. The American Petroleum Institute has fought that. I mean, to this day, they've fought against any mandates. They fight against states being able to regulate fossil fuel usage. You know, their position is pretty clear. I guess my point is, I don't know of a business in the history, certainly not one that's been as profitable for as long as it has as the fossil fuel industry, that cuts its own throat. [00:00:55] Speaker 2: Well, let me not talk too much about API other than to say that we don't agree with them on everything and that we are... Aren't you on their board? Yes, and we are working very hard to, of course, change the stance of the API in areas that we believe is important. But we are fiercely lobbying behind the scenes to make these mandates work. And listen, John, there is no sort of uniform solution. The solutions we are going to need to cut the demand in aviation is different from steel, it's different from residential heating. It's got to go sector to sector even with that. [00:01:24] Speaker 1: Sector by sector. So what do you need, what will you need from the government? What do you need the government to, to help you transition? [00:01:31] Speaker 2: In every sector, there is a different type of government involvement needed. Sometimes putting a price on carbon, sometimes subsidies may actually be really helpful to kickstart something. Sometimes it's going to be a standard or a mandate that needs to be set in there. [00:01:45] Speaker 1: And each industry is going to fight these mandates differently. Some will welcome them. Some will fight it. But a lot of them will fight it. [00:01:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if they are poorly designed, they will fight it. And then from large governments, like the United States, we need international leadership. Because if you think you can decarbonize the aviation industry on a national basis, that's not going to work. If you look at aviation, you can fly on biofuels. The problem with biofuels is they are three times as expensive as petroleum-based fuels. What you have to do is get around the table, not only with energy companies, also with airlines, and with airports, and with regulators. Two years ago, when I had my first dialogue with a grouping like this, we had no concept collectively of how we were going to decarbonize. [00:02:30] Speaker 1: And that was only two years ago is the first time. [00:02:32] Speaker 2: After 26 COPs, this was the first COP where the word sector was being used. Before then, everything needed to be done by the nation state. [00:02:40] Speaker 1: So there have been 26 climate conferences. [00:02:42] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:02:43] Speaker 1: And this is the first one where everybody said, we should probably look at this sector to sector. Yes. So why is that? Why are we still talking about this as something we should be doing, not something we are doing? [00:02:58] Speaker 2: I think it is because of the unbelievable complexity of the problem, the fragmentation. [00:03:05] Speaker 1: How big a change would it be, though, if these energy companies were to, together, announce an ambitious plan for building out the infrastructures, sector to sector, using the profits of the legacy business as seed money to that transitional infrastructure? [00:03:24] Speaker 2: We will need to use some of our oil and gas cash flows to build the hydrogen business of the future. Because if I was just only allowed to use the hydrogen income, it would take a century to build it. [00:03:36] Speaker 1: Interrupting what is a brilliantly profitable business, which is oil and gas, like maybe the real people you need to convince are the shareholders of a company so accustomed to these incredible profit margins. So, truthfully, in my mind, unless we can convince energy companies that they own a lot of this future, we can't make that transition with the speed that we need to make it with. So, here's maybe a different thought: Clean up. Planet Earth as a Superfund site for carbon, let's pay energy companies, the companies that extracted this fuel in the first place, let's pay you to clean it up. You cannot solve the problem by just sequestering the carbon that we take out. You can't just pull it out of the air and jam it into the ground. That's not a system-wide solution. [00:04:34] Speaker 2: The first thing you have to do is make your problem a whole lot smaller. And then, indeed, you cannot reduce it all the way down to zero. We will always have use for carbon-based energy, whether you like it or not. Understood. So, if we are going to get to one and a half degrees by the end of this century, it may well be that by 2050, we are over one and a half degrees and we need the second half of the century to clean up. And some of it will, indeed, have to be capturing the CO2 out of the air and sticking it either in the ground or in a plant. And we need to be as aggressive as we can. And I think there's a role for governments to play, there's a role for companies like us to play. And I think the sooner that we as a society get aligned on that idea, the more progress we can make. But you do have people who believe that it is just prolonging the life of fossil fuels. [00:05:23] Speaker 1: In many respects, some of those are opinions expressed by activists. And activists have the least amount of power in this equation. I disagree with you there. Really? Absolutely. Activists aren't the ones that are keeping the government from mandating these things. The industry is. [00:05:38] Speaker 2: The activist power has gone in through deep into society. Yes. And now we have discussions with our investors who say society doesn't want this. So why are you looking for this solution? [00:05:50] Speaker 1: They've done an amazing job of raising the consciousness of this and of putting pressure. But man, if we're having a lifetime achievement award where we put energy lobbyists and customers of fossil fuels and governments and activists in the same room. Like, those first three I mentioned hold the real power. Yeah. And so how does an industry regain the trust of a public that so needs them to lead this transition when we're so accustomed to being in some ways, forgive the pun, gas lit by the industry that they're far more concerned about this when you know what their core business is. And that trust is at an all time low. [00:06:38] Speaker 2: Well, it, um, that's indeed a very difficult question. There is no way I can talk to you, John, or to the public at large and say trust us. Right. Ultimately, the trust is going to be regained by delivering the proof points of change and by delivering the proof points of solutions. Thank you. All right, sir. [00:07:08] Speaker ?: Thank you.