According to a US congressional memo released on Friday, oil giants are publicly committed to greening their operations, but admit internally that their actions will not lead to significant emissions reductions due to continued heavy investments in hydrocarbons.

“The documents released today show that the industry has no concrete cleanup plan and plans to pump even more polluting fuel for decades to come,” said Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House committee investigating the issue.

“These companies know their climate commitments are inadequate, but they put record profits ahead of the human consequences of climate change,” she added.

Among the leaked documents is an excerpt from a presentation made to Chevron’s board of directors, which explains that the decline of some oil and gas competitors creates opportunities that the company can take advantage of by “continuing to invest” in traditional energy.

An internal email from the powerful US oil lobby API reveals that its 2021 climate strategy is primarily aimed at “continuing the promotion of natural gas”.

According to the commission, the documents also show that businesses in the sector “privately admit that their strategy is to ‘oppose and block’ climate regulations.”

And when some companies sell their most polluting activities, such as shale gas, they know that this will not eliminate the emissions created by those projects, but simply transfer them to another company’s balance sheet.

A House committee launched an investigation in September 2021, accusing the oil companies of long trying to hide the climate impacts of their operations and continuing to oppose new climate regulations.

Criticism has intensified in recent months when government officials accused them of taking advantage of the recent spike in energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine to reap large profits and redistribute them to shareholders, instead of increasing their investment in conventional and renewable energy.

On Thursday, ExxonMobil announced an increase in its share buyback program from $30 billion to $50 billion by 2024 and an increase in clean energy spending from $15 billion to $17 billion by 2027.

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