What If Both Sides Of The ESG Debate Are Right About US Majors’ Oil And Gas Investments, But For The Wrong Reasons?

What If Both Sides Of The ESG Debate Are Right About US Majors’ Oil And Gas Investments, But For The Wrong Reasons?

Share to Linkedin My hypothesis is that US majors underinvest both in renewables and in oil and gas needed to get us through the energy transition. Perhaps, the right question, addressed to both the anti and pro ESG wings, should be: how to get more investment in both oil and gas (if needed) and in renewables, which is clearly needed? Now that the House of Representatives had turned over to the Republicans, the rhetoric around claims of "woke" capitalism have grown louder. One of the major beefs of the anti-ESG wing of the Republican party is that ESG is responsible for the cut in US investment in oil and gas production. At the same time, the International Energy Agency (IEA), by no means a liberal mouthpiece, calculated that "in 2020, clean energy investments by the oil and gas industry accounted for only around 1% of total capital expenditure." That proportion was expected to go up to around 4% in 2021. These claims, when juxtaposed, lead me to a hypothesis that has not garnered much attention thus far: US majors potentially underinvest both in oil and gas production and on renewables. I believe that the anti-ESG wing is partially correct in