\u201cOil companies are not trying to follow the winds of the sustainable transition anymore,\u201d said Nayantara Dutta, the head of research at Clean Creatives. \u201cThey\u2019re not trying to necessarily look like the good guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The political mood has changed dramatically from 2020, a time when world leaders seemed poised to finally take climate change seriously, to the present day, when wars, political chaos, and rising costs have shifted their focus. Big businesses<\/a>, politicians<\/a>, and the news media<\/a> have gotten quieter about climate change. The Clean Creatives analysis is one of two new reports that trace how oil giants \u2014 which have much to gain from the world failing to confront climate change \u2014 changed their narrative over this period. The new research shows their green-coded language was in retreat long before President Donald Trump returned to office.<\/p>\n As oil companies look to expand their natural gas infrastructure, they have to carefully consider how they\u2019re selling it to the public. To build more pipelines, plants, and wells, oil companies need not just formal permits from governments, but also an informal kind of permission known as a \u201csocial license to operate\u201d \u2014 essentially, earning enough public acceptance to maintain legitimacy and head off opposition, such as protests and legal challenges. \u201cThey hire the best PR agencies in the world to try to basically dupe you into believing that they\u2019re socially responsible,\u201d said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Brown University.\u00a0<\/p>\n After Russia invaded Ukraine, for example, companies began using national security and economic resilience as a means to justify expanding production, no matter where they were. That argument sometimes blurred into a broader claim that the world simply needed more fossil fuels. \u201cEnergy demands are rising, and the effects are being felt everywhere,\u201d said the voiceover for one ad in 2022. \u201cThat\u2019s why at Chevron, we\u2019re increasing production in the Permian Basin by 15 percent, and we\u2019re projected to reach 1 million barrels of oil per day by 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n But the current moment is bringing into question the narrative that fossil fuels are key to ensuring a country has reliable, affordable sources of energy. The U.S. and Israel\u2019s war on Iran has sparked the biggest oil supply disruption in history<\/a>, with about 15 percent<\/a> of the global supply stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping pathway along Iran\u2019s coast. Gas prices in the U.S. have soared, with the national average for a gallon of gas<\/a> jumping 87 cents in a month. The situation has piqued interest in electric vehicles<\/a>, showcasing how dependence on fossil fuels leaves people vulnerable to swings in the price of gas. Meanwhile, natural gas prices have risen sharply in Asia and Europe, where political leaders are calling for more investment in nuclear energy<\/a> to weather fossil fuel price shocks. \u201cThe energy security argument about natural gas is kind of being turned on its head,\u201d Brulle said.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The planet is overheating. Why is the news looking away?<\/a><\/p>\n This tumultuous state of affairs made Jennie Stephens, a professor of climate justice at Maynooth University in Ireland, ponder what would have happened if the world had turned to renewables earlier; if, say, oil companies hadn\u2019t been working for decades to slow down action on climate change. \u201cIf we had been able to commit collectively to a global fossil fuel phaseout, we would be in a very different position, right?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Stephens\u2019 recent research, published last week<\/a> in the journal Energy, Sustainability, and Society, found that when oil companies do talk about renewables, it\u2019s often in a way that reinforces negative perceptions about wind and solar power. Along with researchers at Northeastern University and Columbia University, Stephens analyzed how BP, Exxon, Shell, and the French oil giant Total Energies discussed solar, wind, and other sustainable energy sources in their annual reports from 2016 through 2022. \u201cWe found out that they were talking about renewables as kind of in service of expanding fossil fuels,\u201d Stephens said. At times, this has been literal, such as Total\u2019s recent floating offshore wind project<\/a> that powers an oil and gas platform. After 2020, oil companies began highlighting downsides of renewables more frequently, discussing their costs and intermittency, the study found.<\/p>\n In parallel, oil companies retreated from the message that they were \u201cpartners\u201d in the \u201cenergy transition\u201d and began backtracking on their climate promises<\/a> in 2023. That year, they promoted a narrative that fossil fuels can expand at the same time as the world reduces emissions, according to the Clean Creatives report. It claims that companies shifted from greenwashing to \u201cgaslighting\u201d \u2014 sowing doubt among the public that the world needs to stop building fossil fuel infrastructure<\/a>, a step the United Nations\u2019 leading body of climate scientists has said is necessary to meet the Paris Agreement\u2019s climate goals. \u201cWe call it gaslighting because they\u2019re confusing people about what the truth actually is and about what their operations are achieving,\u201d Dutta said.<\/p>\n In 2024, oil and gas companies leaned into the idea that fossil fuels are a fact of modern life, emphasizing talking points about how oil and gas were needed for a \u201cbalanced energy future.\u201d \u201cThe specific vocabulary being used is \u2018responsible, balanced, pragmatic,\u2019 to make people feel like the logical solution is an investment in fossil fuels,\u201d Dutta said. While Clean Creatives\u2019 analysis ended in 2024, the general message stayed the same in 2025, she said, though companies adapted by positioning fossil fuels as essential to technological advancement, particularly for data centers powering AI.<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sign-drought.jpg\")
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