Fossil Fuel Companies Control a Meager 1.42% of Global Renewables

It’s remarkable how efficient climate misinformation has been. If you look at ads from major oil companies, they often present themselves as the heroes of the story, featuring sleek montages of wind turbines and solar panels. In the early days of the renewable transition, even climate “doomers” speculated that fossil giants would eventually use their massive wealth to monopolize renewable infrastructure. They worried Big Oil would become Big Green. But none of that seems to be true. An exhaustive audit of the world’s top 250 oil and gas companies reveals that the industry’s engagement with renewable energy is closer to a rounding error. According to research published in Nature Sustainability , these companies own little more than 1% of global renewables. The 1% Problem The study, conducted by researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), scrutinized the assets of the 250 largest oil and gas firms . Collectively, these giants are responsible for 88% of global hydrocarbon production. The researchers hunted down every solar panel , wind turbine, and geothermal plant owned by these corporations. Turns out, these companies own roughly 1.42% of the world’s renewable capacity. Even within their own operations, renewables are invisible. The electricity generated from green sources accounts for a tiny 0.13% of the total energy these companies produce. But it gets even worse. Even for this small percentage, Big Oil didn’t exactly roll up its sleeves to build new infrastructure. The data shows that 54% of the renewable capacity owned by oil and gas firms was purchased. “About half their contribution to renewable energy deployment is related to the acquisition of other renewable energy companies,” the researchers note in the study. The authors note that this represents a “financial contribution without operational additionality.” Essentially, ownership changes hands, but no new clean power is added to the grid. Europe Is Doing Better Not all oil giants are dragging their feet at the same speed. Europe is doing the heavy lifting, though it’s debatable how “heavy” it really is. TotalEnergies leads the pack with nearly 14.6 GW of installed capacity, followed by runners-up like BP, Eni, and Shell, hovering around 4 GW each. Meanwhile, North American companies are almost entirely absent from the leaderboard. The study notes remarkably that “none of the North American companies has any notable renewable assets”. Companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron show effectively 0% renewable generation in this analysis. In the rare instances when oil companies do venture into renewables, they tend to stick to technologies that look familiar. The industry’s market share is highest in geothermal (6.96%) and offshore wind (5.24%). From an engineering standpoint, this makes sense. If you know how to drill deep wells or build massive structures in the middle of a rough ocean, those skills transfer to geothermal and offshore wind projects. However, these sectors are dwarfed globally by solar and onshore wind, where Big Oil’s presence is minimal. There’s one big caveat to this data: sister companies. Many national oil companies (like those in China) are...

Preview: ~500 words