For what it’s worth, I have worked in the Arctic a lot, and Conoco was the most responsible business from an environmental standpoint that I’ve ever been around.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but compared to many of the other actors up on the Slope, Conoco was pretty damn good.
It’s still sucking hydrocarbons out of the earth, but if someone is going to do it anyway I’d rather it was Conoco than Exxon or Hillcorp.
They can be as clean as they want (and sure, many people have probably worked a lot to achieve that), but in the end, the oil will become CO2 and our problem will become worse.
The U.S. produces a massive amount of emissions itself, especially considering its much smaller population compared to China and India. The U.S. government has the ability to set energy policy (e.g. not allowing new oil exploration, phasing out use of fossil fuels), which could reduce global emissions significantly.
The U.S. can’t control what China and India’s energy policies are (although it certainly can greatly influence world energy markets), but it can control its own energy policy and should do that. That the U.S. is not is just making things worse.
It's about #10 overall, but most of the countries above it are tiny, and their overall production is negligible.
Canada and Australia do appear above the US on the list, though not radically so. They are somewhat smaller than the US.
Although the US is not literally #1, either overall or per capita, it's one of the best targets for reducing CO2. Its per-capita consumption is so much higher than most that it should be able to look to other developed countries for ways to reduce it, and its overall consumption is so high that any small change will have a disproportionate effect on the total.
That's a lot more words than saying "The US is the largest per-capita producer", but arguing that it isn't is really just arguing over details. The important question is "Who should be taking the biggest steps to reduce CO2" and the answer is unambiguously "The US", followed by China and the developed Western countries.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but compared to many of the other actors up on the Slope, Conoco was pretty damn good.
It’s still sucking hydrocarbons out of the earth, but if someone is going to do it anyway I’d rather it was Conoco than Exxon or Hillcorp.