The oil and gas majors are phasing down their renewable strategies. What does it mean for climate goals?

The oil and gas majors are phasing down their renewable strategies. What does it mean for climate goals?

Interchange Recharged · 2025-07-01
41:32

In February this year BP announced it was cutting its investment in green energy ventures from $5B to $2B while reallocating $10B to fossil fuels, and abandoning its 2030 oil output reduction target. Shell has also scrapped its planned 20% carbon reduction cut for 2030. It’s not a good display of intent from the perspective of the energy transition. In a highly volatile and uncertain policy environment it’s troubling for investors and clean energy developers. The prioritisation of short-term profit at the expense of long-term climate impact has many implications.

To find out, host Sylvia Leyva Martinez is joined by private investor Ben Dell, Managing Partner at Kimmeridge. He says that while “everyone wants low-cost energy on demand with a minimal carbon footprint, every dollar invested has to be cost-competitive. Philanthropy is not an investing strategy.” What does that mean in the context of clean energy deployment?

Plus, Wood Mac analyst Tom Ellacott joins the show to look at the outlook for oil and gas in light of the news from the majors. As he sees it, gas is a growth fuel for the next 20 - 30 years and the most optimal power delivery system is still renewables paired with small-scale batteries and natural gas. So why are major energy providers flip-flopping with their strategies when this is widely accepted?

The key questions are: how are oil and gas majors adjusting their capital allocation between fossil fuels and renewables? What’s the role of natural gas in the transition? And how should investors navigate volatility and uncertainty in energy markets? You’ll get the answers here.

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Interchange Recharged

Clean tech, green finance and energy innovation are the three lanes on the road to a successful global energy transition. At the intersection of these lanes is a place where ideas on finance, technology and policy are shared and debated. That intersection is Interchange Recharged.  

Sylvia Leyva Martinez, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, invites visionaries, entrepreneurs, policy-makers and energy analysts to explore the newest developments in renewable technology, explain the ideas on global energy policy that could accelerate the energy transition, and identify new funding and financial models that could solve the biggest challenges we face on the way to net zero.  

Sylvia and her guests bring you data and forecasts on clean technology, climate science, and offer predictions on the build out of utility-scale projects and the future of green finance. 

What impacts do the annual UN Conference of the Parties have on decarbonisation goals and climate change? What will COP30 bring? What’s happening in global EV adoption and development? What’s the forecast for solar energy, one of the major success stories of renewable energy in the last ten years? What does the data tell us about the future of hydrogen, of nuclear, or of low-carbon power?  These are examples of the insights and detailed analyses you can expect bi-weekly on Tuesdays at 7am ET.  

If you like The Energy Transition Show, Catalyst with Shayle Kann, The Big Switch from Columbia University, Open Circuit  with Jigar Shah or The Green Blueprint, you’ll enjoy Interchange Recharged. 

 

Want to get involved with the show? Reach out to [email protected] to: 

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Check out another leading clean tech global podcast by Wood Mackenzie, Energy Gang, at woodmac.com/podcasts/the-energy-gang 

Wood Mackenzie is the leading global data and analytics solutions provider for renewables, energy and natural resources. Learn more about Wood Mackenzie on the official website: https://www.woodmac.com/ 

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