As has become clear thanks to great reporting, the dirty energy industry is fighting dirty to stop climate action and weaken it where it can’t stop it, all while claiming that it’s Very Concerned about climate change. For example, yesterday (after the bulk of this roundup was already drafted), ExxonMobil graciously embraced federal carbon sequestration — essentially asking for public lands to be made available to dispose of its carbon trash.
It’s also happening on the individual level, as exemplified by Mathias Cormann. Currently a top-two contender to lead the Paris-headquartered Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (yes, that's what OECD stands for), Cormann is a former Australian Finance Minister who travelled the world last year (along with a doctor because pandemic-be-damned, this man wants a better job!) to lobby for the powerful position, in part by paying lip service to OECD’s role in reducing emissions.
For those unfamiliar with Cormann, that may sound all well and good. But as you might have guessed, it turns out Cormann’s not exactly a climate champ. In fact, it looks more like he’s a climate denier. Cormann voted to repeal Australia’s carbon price in 2014 and, as a senior minister in the Abbott government, tried to dismantle Australia’s Renewable Energy Agency and Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
As leader of the Australian Green Party Adam Brandt wrote in a letter to ambassadors to oppose Cormann’s nomination, “as finance minister, [Cormann] tried to abolish the very same green finance bodies he will no doubt be promoting as evidence of his green credentials for the job.”
More recently, in case you’ve wondered if perhaps he’s changed his tune, he was integral to the ouster of former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, largely over a modest clean energy policy. The ascendancy of Scott Morrison to Prime Minister then enabled Cormann to use his finance minister position to become a champion of Australia’s “gas-led recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic.
At no point, it appears, has Cormann done anything but sabotage climate action. So why the sudden change of heart? Or change of tune, at least?
Maybe it has something to do with outgoing OECD chief Ángel Gurría saying we need to “put a big fat price on carbon.” Also, the other top contender for the job is Cecilia Malmström, who would be the first woman to serve as OECD Secretary-General and (more to the point here) whose platform includes a green pandemic recovery that’s sure to appeal to key constituents, like the Biden Administration.
With that context, it makes more sense to see that Cormann is “trying to airbrush his climate record,” as a Guardian headline recently put it.
It would be great to live in a world where career pollution apologists like Cormann are persuaded by facts and logic and compelling storytelling to see the errors of their ways and embrace the clean energy transition needed to stave off the climate crisis.
But we’ve seen over and over, in the real world, the dirty energy apparatus only wants a seat at the table of climate policy so that it can cut the legs out from under it. It's a sign of progress that Cormann appears to think calling for climate action is the politically beneficial strategy, but the stakes are just too high to naively and gullibly assume that an actor with a sustained history of blocking climate action is now, finally, after years of denial, actually totally on board with pursuing climate policies that would effectively reduce emissions.
Because whomst amongst us hasn’t airbrushed our credentials a little to try and land a sweet new gig influencing global finances and schmoozing world leaders in Paris?