Texas Energy Report NewsClips
Friday January 23, 2026
Asterisk (*) denotes news stories that may be inaccessible because portions are behind a paywall
Good morning! Here are today’s Texas Energy Report NewsClips
Oil prices rebounded on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump renewed threats against major Middle Eastern producer Iran, raising concerns of military action that could disrupt supplies.
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 42 cents, also 0.7%, to $59.78 a barrel as of 0522 GMT.
Brent crude futures for March rose 43 cents, or 0.7%, to $64.49 a barrel.
Both contracts slumped about 2% on Thursday. They rebounded after Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One the U.S. has an “armada” heading toward Iran but hoped he would not have to use it, as he renewed warnings to Tehran against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear program.
Top Stories
Latin Times – January 22, 2026
The U.S. won’t provide security guarantees to companies that plan to operate in Venezuela, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said. “We are not going to get involved in providing on the ground security for people in Venezuela,” Wright said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “Oil and gas companies operate all around the world in all different settings, they’re well versed in those challenges,” he added.
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The Wall Street Journal – January 22, 2026
Trump Administration Taps Data Centers for Backup Power Ahead of Snowstorm*
The Energy Department is ordering U.S. grid operators to make backup electricity generation from facilities such as data centers available in case of power outages caused by the weekend’s expected winter storm, its latest extraordinary step to address electricity shortages and high prices. Electricity providers were told they should tap into available backup power used by manufacturing facilities, retail businesses and data centers, if power demand in their regions nears a level that could potentially lead to a blackout, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an interview.
“We’re going to do everything we can to keep the lights on and to keep power prices down” during the storm, Wright said. He said the Energy Department has been working on the program for several months and it could also be implemented during peak demand periods in the summer. The energy secretary sent energy reliability coordinators and balancing authorities a letter Thursday telling them that the DOE would make backup power available to address what he calls a “national energy emergency.” The measures are taken under a law giving the energy secretary power to take control of electricity generating facilities to meet demand in emergency situations.
The move is unusual because data-center operators and businesses generally don’t distribute energy to the grid. The DOE under Wright has been examining ways it can give data centers the ability to build their own power generation, which he has said could help lower electricity prices. It wasn’t immediately clear how the plans would work on short notice or whether they would face technical hurdles.
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S&P Global Platts – January 22, 2026
US winter storm derails Henry Hub’s recent bearish turn
The fierce, impending US winter storm is reshaping the outlook for 2026 natural gas pricing which, until the current week, had been trending increasingly bearish. Since markets emerged from the recent holiday weekend, forecasts have materialized calling for days of sub-freezing temperatures across much of the Central and Eastern US, as well as a corresponding surge in gas demand for heating.
Forward prices have soared in line with the forecasts, with the Platts M2MS 2026 Henry Hub forward strip rising to $3.90/MMBtu as of Jan. 21, 21% higher than where the strip settled on Jan. 16. Platts is part of S&P Global Energy.
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The Latest TERse Tips
With an approaching winter storm, Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday announced a disaster declaration for 134 counties that might be impacted, but said that the state has never been more prepared for a winter storm like the one that is coming — CBS News
Valero on Thursday reported maintenance at a gasoline-producing FCC unit at its 200,000 bpd McKee refinery in Texas
While the more than two year old initiative has disspated on the part of Texas news media to consistently name state oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Dan & Farris Wilks as conservative pocketbook powerbrokers, the Fort Worth Star Telegram on Wednesday notes, “Ahead of the November contest, Texans United for a Conservative Majority donated more than $300,000 to Republican Leigh Wambsganss [in the Senate District 9 runoff against Democrat Taylor Rehmet], including in the form of services like campaign text messages and events. The political action committee is largely funded by West Texas oilman Tim Dunn” — “Big Money and Big Volume: A Look at the Donors in Fort Worth Area Senate Race” by Eleanor Dearman
ERCOT began weatherization inspections after deadly 2021 winter storm. What’s that mean? — officials said reforms and improvements made since 2021 have had positive impact on grid reliability — Dallas Morning News*
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has voiced strong support for a proposed federal offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of America, calling it a key move to enhance U.S. energy production and security — Yahoo! News
Sage Geosystems, the company pioneering Pressure Geothermal, closed over $97 million in Series B funding to advance its geothermal power generation and energy storage solutions, including its first commercial next-generation geothermal power generation facility — see the press release
Why One Big Ship Buyer Wants Shadow Fleet Tankers — GMS seeks a U.S. license to legally pay cash for sanctioned ‘floating rust buckets’ — The Wall Street Journal*
Mexia: How Texas’ Oil Boom Created the State’s Most Lawless Town — KCEN
Oil & Gas Texas
The Wall Street Journal – January 22,2026
Scott Sheffield, the Shale Boss Spurned by Exxon, Joins Fight Against Coterra*
Oil boss Scott Sheffield has a new job: activist gunslinger. Investment firm Kimmeridge is preparing to nominate Sheffield, the former chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, to join Coterra Energy’s board as part of an activist push to revamp the company, according to people familiar with the matter. It is an unexpected twist in a brewing battle over the future of Coterra, a roughly $20 billion, public oil-and-gas producer based in Houston. Sheffield, 73 years old, just last summer emerged from a yearlong, bruising battle that stymied his retirement plans—and led him to announce he no longer wanted a board seat at oil giant Exxon Mobil.
Kimmeridge has been pushing for new leadership at Coterra and said it should sell its natural-gas operations to focus on its crude business in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico. The firm owns a little over 1% of Coterra, the people said. Now, Kimmeridge is enlisting Sheffield, an industry heavyweight, to champion its claims. He is a respected, successful oilman who for years was U.S. shale’s de facto leader. In 2024, he sold Pioneer to Exxon in a $60 billion blockbuster deal.
His nomination is likely to put pressure on Coterra Chairman and CEO Tom Jorden. Kimmeridge has said Coterra’s board must reassess its leadership structure and appoint an independent, nonexecutive chair. The firm expects to nominate five people to Coterra’s board, including Sheffield. It plans to recommend that he be appointed chairman, the people said.
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Compressor News – January 22, 2026
Kinder Morgan sees LNG, power demand driving decade-long surge
Kinder Morgan closed 2025 with record earnings and a rapidly expanding natural gas project pipeline, underscoring management’s conviction that LNG exports and power generation—particularly data centers—will drive sustained growth in U.S. gas demand well into the next decade.
Speaking on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Executive Chairman Richard Kinder said Kinder Morgan now estimates LNG feed gas demand will average 19.8 Bcf/d in 2026, up 19 percent from 2025 levels, before climbing to more than 34 Bcf/d by 2030. That growth, he said, directly benefits pipeline operators with strong Gulf Coast and Southeast footprints.
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Midland Reporter-Telegram – January 22, 2026
ConocoPhillips leaders see more Permian gains, urge water reuse and new power lines*
For over a century, the Permian Basin has produced crude and natural gas. Even after all that time, it remains a significant resource for the nation and the globe. Mike Sommers, president and chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute, spoke with Nick Olds, executive vice president for Lower 48 and global HSE, and Aaron Hunter, president of the Permian region, both with ConocoPhillips, at the Midland Chamber of Commerce State of Oil & Gas luncheon.
“It’s a significant resource,” Olds said. “The key thing to look at is how to make it even better, how to get more out of the reservoirs. Producing 1%, 2%, even 10% more is significant. To move that needle means a lot more resource.” Hunter noted that he moved to Midland around 2005 and has seen several price downturns, including 2015-16 and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Asked about misconceptions about the area, he said it’s not like “Landman” or centered around a bar culture. “There are people who move here who say they’ll be here a few years and move on. I’ve been here 21 years and there is a core group that wants to stay,” Hunter said.
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Houston Chronicle – January 22, 2026
Offshore proposal highlights gulf between Texas and California values
It’s hard to match the degree of enthusiasm with which Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham greeted the Trump administration’s upcoming sale of oil-and-gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Hold my beer, say environmental activists such as Cheers and The Good Place actor Ted Danson, whose disdain for a similar proposal opening the waters off the California coast comes close. “From Santa Barbara in 1969 to Huntington Beach in 2021 to today, our state continues to suffer from offshore drilling’s destructive legacy,” Danson said at an event in Santa Barbara last week, according to SFGATE. “When I talk to people from both political parties, everyone agrees that the risk of expanded offshore drilling is too high for California’s coastline, fisheries, wildlife, communities and local economies. We’ve stopped this before, and we can do it again.”
The latest Gulf sale, which would put roughly 15,000 unleased sections covering 80 million acres of federally controlled waters on the market, is scheduled for March 11. In a news release this week, Buckingham applauded the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the federal agency administering the sale, for taking “a critical step toward restoring American energy dominance but also toward bolstering national security.”
“Texas is the energy capital of the world, and expanding responsible offshore production in the Gulf of America is essential to our nation’s economic strength and national security,” Buckingham said. “I applaud BOEM for continuing to deliver on President Trump’s commitment to predictable, pro-energy leasing that puts America first.”
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Politico – January 20, 2026
Industry expands gasoline pipeline proposal to reach LA*
A pair of fuel companies hoping to set up the first ever gasoline pipeline carrying fuel into California from other states upped the ante on the ambitious proposal Friday. Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan launched a second open season for their Western Gateway pipeline proposal, a period during which other companies will be able to express interest in transporting fuel through the future pipeline.
The companies’ initial proposal, announced in October, envisioned moving gasoline from St. Louis to San Bernardino County. Now, the fuel firms want to carry the out-of-state gasoline all the way to the Los Angeles area by reversing the direction of flow in an existing Kinder Morgan pipeline. The two companies have already received shipper commitments to use the Western Gateway pipeline, according to the announcement. The expanded proposal could bring additional gasoline into the Los Angeles market during a time when the state’s oil refining capacity is shrinking.
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ProPublica – January 22, 2026
“A Fraudulent Scheme”: New Mexico Sues Texas Oil Companies for Walking Away From Their Leaking Wells
The state of New Mexico is accusing three Texas oil executives of orchestrating “a fraudulent scheme” to pocket revenue from hundreds of oil and gas wells in New Mexico and offload the cost of plugging and cleaning up the wells onto the state’s taxpayers. The suit, filed in late December by the New Mexico attorney general’s office, is the latest salvo in the state’s fight against oil and gas executives accused of foisting old wells onto the public.
The 72-page complaint alleges a yearslong pattern of fraud and self-dealing in which the oil executives — Everett Willard Gray II, Robert Stitzel and Marquis Reed Gilmore Jr., all of Midland, Texas — repeatedly transferred wells among “a series of shell corporations, LLCs, and partnerships they created.” On multiple occasions, the men placed companies into bankruptcy protection, only to move their profitable wells to other companies they owned or managed outside the bankruptcy proceedings, the suit said.
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Zacks/Nasdaq – January 22, 2026
How Exxon Mobil’s Integrated Strengths Offset Crude Price Weakness
Exxon Mobil continues to sail through volatility in crude prices by relying on its integrated business model and balance sheet strength. However, the company relies on its upstream segment for a significant part of its earnings. Therefore, it might be worth assessing whether the current oil price environment is beneficial for XOM.
The recent geopolitical development concerning Venezuela may result in incremental barrels flowing into the oil and gas market, further weighing down on the oil price. At present, oil prices are trailing close to the $60 per barrel mark, significantly lower than the previous year. However, Exxon Mobil has stated that even though the country sits on significant oil reserves, its energy infrastructure has been crippled over the years. The company believes that significant changes to the legal and commercial frameworks are necessary to revive Venezuela’s oil and gas industry. Hence, XOM is unlikely to be affected by further supply-demand imbalance.
Oil & Gas National & International
The Wall Street Journal – January 22, 2026
Venezuela Unveils Oil Bill to Attract Investors, Lift Output*
The country’s interim government unveiled a bill Thursday to loosen the state’s iron grip on its beleaguered oil industry, a move aimed at attracting U.S. energy companies but one that analysts say falls short of what is needed to unlock major new investments and revive output as President Trump has demanded. Since the Jan. 3 raid in which U.S. commandos removed strongman Nicolás Maduro from power, Trump has pressed American producers to quickly pour $100 billion into Venezuela, where only Chevron has a license permitting it to operate. The president hopes to lower oil prices in the U.S. to $50 a barrel, helping to bring down the cost of gasoline at the pump in an election year.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s hydrocarbons bill, which is expected to be approved next week by Venezuela’s National Assembly, would give companies more autonomy to operate oil fields and export crude under contracts with state oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA. The proposal would codify into law the opaque oil deals, known as productive participation contracts, that Maduro implemented to circumvent U.S. sanctions on the oil industry, oil analysts say. It would keep a 30% royalty but allow the government to reduce it to 15% in some joint ventures. The bill permits independent arbitration to resolve disputes but doesn’t specify whether it would be conducted abroad, a longtime demand of investors who saw Venezuela’s leftist government in the past nationalize oil projects held by foreign companies.
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SF Gate – January 22, 2026
Trump admin quietly attempts to open the entire Calif. coast to oil drilling
The ongoing effort from President Donald Trump’s administration to sell off public lands for private exploitation has now reached the ends of the continent, as it attempting to open up more than a billion coastal acres for drilling. Activists, lawmakers, environmentalists and other opponents of the massive plan feel that the proposal is being sped through under the cover of an unrelenting news cycle, putting in jeopardy shorelines in California, Alaska and the states along the Gulf of Mexico. All of coastal California would be affected.
In late November, the Department of the Interior released a draft of its offshore oil drilling program for review. The directive would roll back the previous administration’s protection for the shoreline and “replace it with a new, expansive” program by October 2026.
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Yahoo! News – January 21, 2026
Russia’s Oil and Gas Revenues Are Set to Plunge 46% in January
Russia’s budget revenues from oil and gas are set to drop by 46% on the year this month, according to Reuters calculations, which the publication based on oil and gas production figures, refining rates, and sales on both the domestic and international markets.
According to these, Russia’s revenues from oil and gas for January will be 420 billion rubles, which is equal to about $5.42 billion, driven by lower international oil prices and a stronger local currency. The ruble gained over 30% in December 2025 from a year ago, driving the ruble-denominated price for oil used for tax purposes lower by as much as 53%.
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The Wall Street Journal – January 21, 2026
The Tanker Tycoons and Oil Brokers Cashing In on the Venezuela Trade*
While American energy majors hesitate about going back to Venezuela, oil traders and tanker tycoons are diving in. Within hours of Nicolás Maduro’s capture, executives at commodity merchants Vitol and Trafigura were on the phone to shipowners in Athens, said people familiar with the discussions. The traders had a simple question: Could tankers from Greece’s huge merchant fleet sail to Venezuela to load oil if President Trump relaxed sanctions? The answer: We’re on it.
It is boom time for Greek shipowners. Even on mainstream sailing routes, freight rates for the largest tankers have surged 90% since Maduro’s arrest in anticipation that there will be more oil for the global fleet to accommodate. Tanker owners heading to Venezuela are charging a premium on top of that. Charter prices for midsize tankers, ideal for shuttling oil up to American ports, also leapt.
The discussions between shipowners and commodity traders began even before Trump mentioned oil as a motivation for capturing Maduro. They kicked off a rapid round of dealmaking that positioned some of the West’s most swashbuckling companies to profit from the reopening of Venezuela’s oil market. London-based Vitol, and Trafigura in Geneva, quickly secured licenses from Washington allowing them to trade in Venezuela, giving them access while competitors are still barred by sanctions. They agreed to find buyers for Venezuelan crude the U.S. government says Caracas has given it to sell, including initial batches valued at $250 million apiece, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Bloomberg – January 21, 2026
Canada’s Pipeline Problem Returns as Oil Sands Output Surges*
The Canadian oil industry’s two-year reprieve from pipeline bottlenecks may be nearing an end as global crude glut weighs on prices. Enbridge Inc. rationed the most space on its Mainline pipeline system for February than in any month since March 2024, which was before the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline added almost 600,000 barrels a day of export capacity for Western Canada. Shippers on the Mainline were required to cut the volumes they seek to send by 22% for dense, high-sulfur oil from Alberta’s oil sands and by 24% for light crude, a practice known as apportionment.
The increase in rationing threatens to widen the discount for Canadian oil at a time when crude prices are already falling amid a glut of supplies. Oil sands production is particularly exposed after the US overthrew Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month. President Donald Trump has said the US plans to sell as much as 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude — a grade similar to Canadian heavy oil — onto the international market following the leadership change. The discount of Canadian heavy crude in Alberta to a monthly average for the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate has widened to $14.80 a barrel from about $13 a barrel before Maduro’s capture, according to Modern Commodities and General Index pricing.
Utilities, Electricity & Renewables
Texas Monthly – January 22, 2026
Can the Texas Grid Withstand This Winter Storm?*
Texas Monthly spoke to Matthew Boms, executive director of the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance, an industry group that advocates for companies offering wind-, solar-, hydroelectric-, and battery-powered technologies. Texans should be prepared, he says, but a few critical changes in state regulatory policy have outfitted the power-supply chain to withstand the coming chill. …
MB: At the grid level, ERCOT doesn’t have a big backup generator that it could turn on. Reliability means having enough generation and transmission and fuel supply all working at the same time. However, there are layers of backup that matter. For power plants and gas facilities, many of them do have on-site backup generators to keep their controls, their pumps, and their compressors running if they lose power. That’s relatively new since Winter Storm Uri. They’re not meant to power cities, but they could keep the facility itself operating so it could keep producing electricity or gas. That was really one of the major lessons from Uri: The gas infrastructure lost power and couldn’t supply fuel to the power plants. So there’s no single emergency generator that could replace the grid during the winter storm, but the reliability comes from thousands of power plants staying online together.
TM: Are you confident in the grid’s ability to perform after the implemented winterization?
MB: I think it’s less vulnerable than it was in 2021, but it’s not immune. These are mechanical systems that operate outdoors, so freezing temperatures will always be a risk if the equipment isn’t properly protected, right? The changes that have been made since Uri do make a significant difference, and I think they reduce the risk of a repeat of what we saw during Winter Storm Uri, but gas is still the most weather-sensitive part of the system. Water can freeze in the equipment, any power loss to the compressors means you don’t have any flow of fuel, and then extremely cold or prolonged events like single-digit temperatures could overwhelm those protections. So there are still weak points that exist.
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Canary Media – January 22, 2026
A Texas data center will open sooner thanks to an offline grid battery
A leading data center developer and a pioneering Texas battery owner have formed a mutually beneficial partnership that models a new way for energy storage to accelerate the AI infrastructure build-out. Storage firm Eolian completed the Chisholm Grid battery in 2021, placing 100 megawatts/125 megawatt-hours of capacity next to a substation 7 miles northwest of downtown Fort Worth. The site was able to discharge its full capacity for just over an hour — a design that worked well for the first wave of big Texas grid battery projects, which could make good money by providing rapid-response ancillary services.
Another 15 gigawatts of storage have piled into Texas since then, and revenues from those once-lucrative ancillary services have plummeted given the glut of batteries. Meanwhile, the market managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, is changing in other ways that reward longer-duration batteries.
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power magazine – January 22, 2026
The POWER Interview: Grid Integration of DERs
Integrating distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles into the power grid is an important part of the energy transition. Utilities and transmission system operators know they need more flexibility when it comes to power generation and delivery, which involves modernizing infrastructure, using advanced controls, and developing new market rules to manage two-way power flow.
The integration of DERs can support a more resilient supply of electricity. Coordination of smaller, local, decentralized energy sources with existing utility systems, through aggregators and digital platforms, is happening worldwide. Challenges to integrating DERs include managing intermittency, ensuring grid stability, and of course updating regulations for their use. The benefits are many, from having more control of energy costs to utilizing cleaner forms of power generation.
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Energy Media – January 21, 2026
U.S. Electricity Generation Set to Rise as Solar and Battery Capacity Expand: EIA Forecasts
U.S. electricity generation is expected to rise steadily over the next two years as surging demand from data centres and continued growth in renewable capacity reshape the country’s power mix, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. The EIA estimates that electricity generation by the U.S. electric power sector totalled about 4,260 billion kilowatt-hours (BkWh) in 2025. Generation is forecast to grow by 1.1 per cent in 2026 and 2.6 per cent in 2027, reaching 4,423 BkWh, driven largely by new solar capacity and rising electricity consumption.
While dispatchable power sources — natural gas, coal and nuclear — accounted for about 75 per cent of total generation in 2025, the EIA expects their combined share to fall to roughly 72 per cent by 2027. Over the same period, the share of electricity generated from wind and solar is projected to rise from 18 per cent to 21 per cent, continuing a longer-term shift toward cleaner sources.
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ESG Dive – January 21, 2026
Google sees CO2 batteries as large-scale way to store renewable energy
Google is commissioning construction of what are being called CO2 batteries to provide green, reliable backup power for its major data centers in the United States, Europe and in parts of Asia, the company announced. “We’ve been scanning the globe seeking different solutions,” Ainhoa Anda, Google’s senior lead for energy strategy in Paris, said in an IEEE Spectrum report on the project.
CO2 batteries are intended to play a role similar to that of lithium-ion battery units to store excess renewable energy to help ensure data centers have clean, reliable power when needed. But they would have greater capacity and scalability than lithium-ion batteries, and can be easily standardized to be used anywhere.
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Texas Standard (NPR) – January 22, 2026
Why one expert says communities should draft a data center ‘action plan’
Texas is already one of the country’s leaders in data centers. And there are dozens more of the giant computing warehouses on the way, according to Aterio, which tracks data center development. Rural Texas is a popular spot for data centers because of relatively cheap, available land. The state also offers a friendly regulatory environment. Many people who live nearby are concerned about the centers’ effects on energy costs and water availability.
Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, spoke to the Texas Standard about how communities can prepare for potential impacts from data centers. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
Regulatory
KUHF (NPR Houston) – January 21, 2026
The EPA is easing pollution rules under Trump. Here’s how it’s affecting Texas
Within Trump’s first 100 days in office, his new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced a sweeping slate of 31 deregulatory actions. The list, which Zeldin called the agency’s “greatest day of deregulation,” targeted everything from soot standards and power plant pollution rules to the Endangerment Finding, the legal and scientific foundation that obligates the EPA to regulate climate-changing pollution under the Clean Air Act.
Since then, the agency froze research grants, shrank its workforce, and removed some references to climate change and environmental justice from its website — moves that environmental advocates say send a clear signal: the EPA’s new direction will come at the expense of public health. Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, said Texas is one of the states that feels EPA policy changes directly because the state has shown little interest in stepping up its environmental enforcement as the federal government scales back.
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The Hill – January 22, 2026
House rebuffs effort to add ethanol expansion to spending bill
The House on Thursday rebuffed — at least for now — efforts to allow for more ethanol in gasoline year-round as Midwestern lawmakers pushed for more use of the fuel. Some lawmakers, particularly from the Midwest, sought to include legislation that would allow sales of gasoline with higher ethanol content all year in a funding bill.
However, when the lower chamber teed up a vote on the funding bill on Thursday, it did not include an amendment from Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) to allow for the sales of this kind of gasoline, known as E15. Instead, it sets up an “E15 Rural Domestic Energy Council” that seeks to “develop legislative solutions to address the crisis facing our nation’s farmers and refiners.” The rule says that the council should come up with solutions by Feb. 15 and that Congress should consider the legislation by Feb. 25.
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CNBC – January 21, 2026
Top business leaders issue an expletive-laced message on the green backlash
Top business leaders this week delivered an expletive-laden plea in defense of climate action, describing the backlash to Europe’s green transition as an “aberration.” In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte said he disagreed with the suggestion that it may just be a matter of time before net zero is dismissed in Europe, saying short-term thinking on this issue is “bulls—.”
Asked about political leaders backtracking on their much-vaunted European Green New Deal and Norway’s oil fund reportedly defending a push from companies to water down their climate goals, Bäte said anyone who has children “will have to worry” about the planet’s future. “It’s an aberration that short-term people are saying that,” Bäte told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday. “I think it’s about doing it intelligently. And by the way, the role model here is China, they are going to be the leader both in terms of renewable and cost of energy.”