Darren Woods, chairman and chief executive officer Exxon Mobil Corp., at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024.
Photographer: Hollie Adams/BloombergMeet the World’s Most Controversial Climate Capitalist
As negotiators at COP29 struggle to define or finance the energy transition, Exxon CEO Darren Woods turned up with a pitch of his own. An annotated interview.
Exxon Mobil Corp. once appeared to be the biggest corporate casualty of the ESG movement. An activist investor forced Exxon to replace a quarter of its board in 2021, largely because of the Texas oil giant’s inadequate plan for the energy transition. After the board shakeup, Exxon Chairman and Chief Executive Darren Woods stayed the course with oil and gas.
Three years later, that commitment has seen Exxon’s stock price double to near a record high. Rivals with recent, splashy ventures into renewables such Shell Plc and BP Plc have been left behind, filled with regrets. And yet it’s Woods out there striding past earnest climate negotiators in the blue zone at COP29 in Azerbaijan — his second-consecutive appearance at a United Nations climate summit — while making the seemingly contradictory case for both the Paris Agreement and continued investment in fossil fuels.