NYT Climate Event Features Occidental Petroleum CEO, Talking About "Offsets", Producing More Oil & Gas
And yes, demonstrators interrupted the presentation.
NEW YORK—Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, had barely stepped on stage for her interview at the New York Times’ Climate Forward event when an audience member leapt up into her path. “You are not welcome here,” he said. “Tricky Vicki, you can’t hide, we charge you with ecocide.”
Hollub was quickly shepherded off the stage as a dozen other demonstrators with the direct-action organization Climate Defiance wearing suits jumped up to join the chant, and unfurl a banner that read “DON’T TRUST TRICKY VICKI,” and two others that read “LIAR” and “SNAKE OIL.” Some Climate Forward attendees began clapping for the protesters, while others watched in silence or pulled out their phones to record it. There was little audible criticism of the action from the audience, although some attendees voiced annoyance or disappointment at not seeing Hollub speak as they exited and others said they had expected a protest.
EDIT
Hollub was invited to Climate Forward for an interview with David Gelles, managing editor of the Times’ Climate Forward newsletter, titled “Can an oil company lower its emissions?” “The New York Times Climate Forward is a live journalism event designed to bring together influential newsmakers for rigorous and challenging interviews around climate change and political policy,” wrote a Times spokesperson in an emailed statement. “This afternoon, a small group briefly disrupted an on-stage session at Climate Forward. The last interview was streamed live, and a recording will be available on our website and events YouTube page.”
In the recorded interview, Hollub responded to the protest. “Here at Occidental we are working for solutions to the climate change situation that our world faces,” she said. “It’s the greatest crisis that our world has ever faced and we have to come together to work on solutions for that and so, to me, to have those that are seeking headlines rather than solutions interrupt discussions that need to be had is a sad day for them, and I feel bad that they have nothing better to do with their time.” Later in the interview, Hollub said that as long as companies are “offsetting” emissions, there is no reason to stop producing oil and gas until the resources themselves run out.
EDIT
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26092024/activists-disrupt-occidental-petroleum-interview-at-new-york-times-climate-event/
= new reply since forum marked as read
EDIT
The Times’ Climate Forward event featured a series of panelists from global political, corporate, and activism sectors participating with Times journalists in what the company called “live journalism,” with panelists answering real-time questions from Times reporters about climate change tradeoffs, bottlenecks and solutions. Earlier in the day, audience members heard from Zaidi, renowned conservationist Jane Goodall, Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus and Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina, among others.
Tension in the audience was palpable during Gelles’ interview with Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, about Project 2025. Gelles pressed Roberts for answers about the Heritage Foundation’s plans to curb pollution and keep America’s water and air clean, which Roberts asserted was a goal of the project. The U.S. would stay on its current track of producing “the cleanest air and water” if Heritage policies were implemented, Roberts claimed, offering no explanation as to how the federal government could achieve those standards with a crippled Clean Air Act and an Environmental Protection Agency stripped of much of its authority, as Project 2025 calls for, which Gelles pointed out.
At many points throughout the interview, Gelles asked Roberts to answer his questions more directly. He concluded noting that Roberts had not answered a question about whether there was any level of planetary warming that the Heritage Foundation would object to.
EDIT
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26092024/activists-disrupt-occidental-petroleum-interview-at-new-york-times-climate-event/
