What’s Behind Exxon’s Latest Climate-Friendly Turn

A few weeks ago, Exxon Mobil Corp. announced that it had joined a group called the Climate Leadership Council. Founded by Ted Halstead, who's been described as "a serial think-tank entrepreneur," and launched in February, the council is devoted to free-market ideas for slowing climate change. Its membership includes oil-and-gas majors such as Exxon, BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Total SA; conglomerates like PepsiCo Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co.; and such prominent individuals as theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and Michael Bloomberg, the owner of Bloomberg L.P.

In its founding statement, the council outlined a plan, designed as the basis for a potential legislative package, that would combine a tax on greenhouse gas emissions with a "climate dividend" that would redirect the revenue gathered to taxpayers. The proposed initial tax rate of $40 per ton of carbon dioxide produced would add an estimated 36 cents to the cost of a gallon of gasoline and raise more than $200 billion a year to be refunded directly to taxpayers. Raised gradually over time, the tax would diminish demand for fossil fuels. Simultaneously, the plan would end most federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, a goal that President Donald Trump is already pursuing via executive order.