>> For more than 150 years, oil

and gas has played a critical role in our society, improving

human lives, raising standards of living and enabling

unprecedented economic growth. >> What do you do when your

industry can no longer exist without creating catastrophes

worldwide. >> The impacts of climate change

are intensifying... >> It’s important to understand

the past. You can’t understand where you

are, if you don’t know how you got there.

>> NARRATOR: In a special three-part series, the epic

story of our failure to tackle climate change.

>> The whole world is heating up...

>> NARRATOR: And the role of the fossil fuel industry...

>> Did big oil knowingly spread disinformation?

>> NARRATOR: Now, in the third and final part - big oil pivots

to a new energy source. >> Renewables weren't quite

there yet. Natural gas could provide

continuous 24-hour generation. >> Doing something for the first

time, taking advantage of this new resource.

You don't always know what you don't know.

And overtime, what we learned is very, very scary.

>> NARRATOR: And the challenges that have delayed climate

action... >> We have a supply of natural

gas that can last America nearly 100 years.

>> The United States is now the number one producer of oil and

natural gas. >> A global energy crisis

exacerbated by Russia's War... >> To release 60 million barrels

of oil from reserves around the world.

>> We all want a clean climate but what we want more than that,

is to be able to fill up our cars below $4 a gallon.

We're still very much in the fossil fuel age.

We have continued to maintain a position that has evolved with

science and is today consistent with the science.

We won't solve the climate crisis unless we solve the

misinformation crisis.

>> Hey, guys. Nice night, huh?

>> There's this great irony of the Obama administration.

(car door closes) He comes in promising to be the

climate president; he's going to address these issues.

♪ ♪ And at the same time, we're in

the middle of a recession. And one of the few rays of job

growth is in oil and gas. (audience applauding, cheering)

>> Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in

American-made energy. >> The country down on its

heels, and here comes the oil industry, generating lots of

oil, generating tax revenue. It was a great story for the oil

industry to sell. >> Over the last three years,

we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas

exploration. >> The potential for

natural gas was huge. >> We have a supply of

natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years.

>> When Obama said we had 100 years of natural gas, we

panicked, because we knew the climate was changing so fast.

(audience applauding) >> We didn't take the

alternative path of drastically increasing investment in

renewables. >> Thank you, God bless you,

and God bless the United States of America.

>> It should have happened in the Obama years.

And we've exacerbated the climate change problem for ten

years when we could have been diminishing it.

>> The Bible says no man can serve two masters.

Well, we kind of had two masters at that point.

We were trying to be a climate leader, but we were trying to be

an energy superpower. It's impossible, really, to be

both. >> There are massive fracking

booms happening in Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania,

Ohio, I mean, just look at that, it's much of the middle of this

country. >> It's led to unprecedented

expansion in towns from Cotulla to Beeville...

>> The oil fields fueling a red-hot energy boom in the

U.S. >> NARRATOR: During the early

years of the Obama administration, despite

widespread concern about climate change, the fossil fuel industry

was experiencing an historic boom, with tens of thousands of

new wells across the United States.

It was driven in large part by a new technology for extracting

oil and natural gas. It would be a turning point for

the fossil fuel industry and the fight against climate change.

Tony Ingraffea had helped make it happen.

>> I certainly didn't grow up questioning fossil fuels.

It was just 1950s U.S.A. Everything was automatic and

wonderful. We didn't realize it at the

time, but fossil fuels were driving what we call Western

civilization, and still today, I value what fossil fuels have

done for the world. >> NARRATOR: In the early 1980s,

Ingraffea was part of a team of U.S. government engineers

tasked to solve a problem. >> U.S. oil and natural gas

production had just fallen off, right off the end of the table,

since the oil embargo. >> All out!

Said all out of gas. >> What is this, I'm in a line

two hours here and I can't get gas?

This is baloney. >> NARRATOR: America was

becoming increasingly dependent on imported oil and gas from

unreliable sources after its own reserves declined.

>> No gas. >> NARRATOR: There was a quest

to unlock new domestic fossil fuels.

>> Nobody... >> No gas, forget about it.

>> ...had thought about spending a lot of money trying

to get oil and gas out of shale. Nobody knew how to do it.

And most people in the industry, the vast majority of the people

in the industry, said it couldn't be done.

>> NARRATOR: Ingraffea's team began devising new ways to

extract large deposits of oil and gas trapped in shale rock

formations across America. They called it fluid-driven

fracture, now known as fracking. >> Even in this small piece of

Marcellus Shale, there is stored methane, which becomes natural

gas when it's produced. And if one were to estimate the

total amount of methane, thousands of square miles under

all these states, it's many, many trillions of cubic feet

of natural gas. Energy.

How do you get energy out of the Earth?

It all comes by cracking rock. Oil embargo, energy crisis,

crack rock-- help. ♪ ♪

>> NARRATOR: It would take decades before fracking

technology was perfected. The process was complicated and

expensive, and the urgency eventually abated.

That changed when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

♪ ♪ >> The latest information

from the National Hurricane Center puts Katrina on a path

headed for New Orleans. >> Winds there up to 145 miles

per hour with gusts up to 170. >> NARRATOR: The storm was part

of an emerging trend of extreme weather events.

It devastated the Gulf Coast and damaged oil and gas production.

Natural gas prices surged, making it more attractive to use

new drilling and fracking technologies to get oil and gas

from shale formations. >> You have this amazing irony

of this huge hurricane, this climate event, causing natural

gas prices to go up. >> Do you have a figure or an

estimate of how high we might see natural gas prices go?

>> We've seen prices double over the last couple of years, and

then with Hurricane Katrina, prices have doubled yet again.

>> All of a sudden, these companies are saying, "Wow, you

know, we're getting huge profits."

The climate crisis was creating a huge market boom, which was

being solved by people going out drilling more natural gas, which

was feeding into the climate crisis.

It was a, a self-contained cycle.

>> NARRATOR: Wall Street took note.

Over the next several years, investors would begin pumping

billions of dollars into companies with fracking

operations. Russell Gold covered the boom

for "The Wall Street Journal" and worked with us on this film.

>> Most people in the oil and gas industry, most reporters

like myself that were covering it, thought that oil and gas in

the United States was over. We had found all the good

reserves, we had drilled all the big wells, but shale changed all

that. It was unexpected, it was

dramatic, and it was lubricated by billions and billions of

dollars coming out of Wall Street.

>> Thanks to record-breaking U.S. production, natural

gas will continue to be a bargain.

At Chesapeake Energy, we explore for American natural gas...

>> NARRATOR: No one would be more responsible for driving the

fracking boom than Aubrey McClendon, C.E.O. of Chesapeake

Energy. >> Aubrey McClendon was a great

visionary. He was a bigger-than-life

individual. >> If there is one message I'd

like to effectively communicate today, it's that America is at

the beginning of a great natural gas boom, and this boom...

>> He believed that natural gas was the fuel of the future,

and that's-- he called it that all the time.

>> The technological breakthrough that we have

developed in finding gas from shales changes everything about

what you think about natural gas scarcity in America.

>> NARRATOR: With the growing awareness about fossil fuels'

effect on the climate, McClendon believed that natural

gas-- which releases less CO2 than oil or coal when burned--

could be marketed as part of the solution.

>> He said, "Well, what do you think?"

You know, he said, "Do we need an association or an

organization just focused on the gas opportunities out there?"

So, we started the Clean Skies Foundation.

It was just doing everything we possibly could to get out the

message. >> What if America had its own

clean energy, abundant and available for the next century

or more, and possibly indefinitely?

>> The fossil fuel industry tries to make this argument that

we can be part of the solution. >> ...a world of good.

>> We can be a force for good on climate, that we'll go out and

we'll drill the natural gas, which is going to help us lower

our emissions. >> Doing a world of good for

our economy, energy security, and our irreplaceable...

>> (whispers): Planet Earth. >> NARRATOR: At the time, most

of the country's power was generated by coal.

McClendon saw an opportunity to position natural gas as a clean

alternative. >> He starts courting probably

the most prominent environmentalist in the country,

Carl Pope at the Sierra Club. >> We were working with

Chesapeake to kill coal, and they were providing us with

financial support. >> I think it was quite clear

that Chesapeake's objective was to build markets for natural gas

at the expense of coal. The concept that we were trying

to convey was to say, "Eventually, we have to be off

all fossil fuels, but we have to get off coal first, oil second,

and gas third." So, we have the opportunity to

replace a very dirty fossil fuel, coal, with a much cleaner

fossil fuel, natural gas, for the next 20 or 30 years, and

that's going to make it even cheaper to decarbonize our

economy. >> NARRATOR: With the Sierra

Club behind him, McClendon had laid out a powerful marketing

strategy for natural gas, a strategy that would be embraced

by ExxonMobil. >> X certainly marks the spot.

ExxonMobil announcing it is buying XTO Energy, and it's a

$41 billion deal, including some debt.

>> ExxonMobil is making a bet here on natural gas.

>> NARRATOR: In 2010, ExxonMobil purchased fracking

company XTO for $41 billion. Overnight, it had become

America's largest natural gas producer.

But inside the company, some engineers were concerned about

the sudden move into fracking. >> ExxonMobil felt that they

had to get into the shale gas game in order for Wall Street to

see them as a growth prospect. >> NARRATOR: Dar Lon Chang had

joined ExxonMobil after getting his PhD in mechanical

engineering. He worked on conventional

natural gas projects abroad before becoming part of the

company's fracking push in the U.S.

>> My peers, when they were recruiting me, they told me that

ExxonMobil was going to be part of the energy transition over my

career. They talked about the

excitement of having gas be a bridge fuel to the future of

energy. >> I think one of the biggest

challenges that the world is facing today is to develop all

the energy we need in an environmentally friendly way.

>> The fact that natural gas was much cleaner-burning than coal,

that it produced half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal, those

were very appealing to me. >> NARRATOR: But Chang knew

that the methane in natural gas had the potential to do

significant damage if allowed to leak into the atmosphere.

>> Natural gas is primarily methane, and methane, when it's

leaked out into the atmosphere, can have orders of magnitude

more global warming impact than carbon dioxide.

>> NARRATOR: Chang worried that the thousands of new, lightly

regulated fracking operations in the U.S. could be leaking

massive amounts of methane and turbo-charge the climate crisis.

>> Shale gas was like the Wild West.

There was already a perception that these smaller operators

were not acting responsibly with the shale gas wells.

♪ ♪ I already felt that having many

methane gas wells was a ticking time bomb for methane gas leaks.

The more engineering infrastructure, the more wells

and the more pipes, the more potential there is for leakage.

When they were marketing natural gas as clean energy,

they didn't really know what they were talking about, because

they were fixated on the idea that natural gas, when burned,

produces half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal.

But without measurement devices to verify that you're not

significantly leaking, you can't be sure that your natural gas is

actually giving you less of a global warming impact than coal.

The industry was not monitoring methane leakage, so they did

not have data about how much was leaking.

And there wasn't much appetite for management to measure

methane leakage, because if they found out there was a problem,

they would have to do something about it.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: At the time,

ExxonMobil and others in the industry said, "They were

working to reduce methane emissions which were already

within limits set by the E.P.A. But on the ground, some in the

environmental community were witnessing widespread leaks.

>> I am hunting for methane that is escaping from oil and

gas facilities because that's what I do.

I am a methane hunter. >> NARRATOR: Sharon Wilson

worked at an environmental watchdog group in Texas

documenting methane emissions. >> All of these pieces of

equipment have got leaks. There's a lot of methane going

off the flare. (machinery running)

This is just a really, really dirty site.

♪ ♪ This is an optical gas-imaging

camera, and it makes the invisible methane and volatile

organic compounds from oil and gas facilities, it makes those

visible. These emissions, what's

coming out of oil and gas sites, the fact that it's invisible

has helped them be able to expand, and helped them maintain

that narrative of being clean, when that is not the case.

The tanks are venting... >> NARRATOR: Wilson traveled

the country, gathering evidence of methane leaks at fracking

sites-- including ExxonMobil wells.

>> We need to move about where that telephone pole is.

>> NARRATOR: She'd send her findings to regulators and the

press. >> It's just disbelief that you

can show someone video after video, proof after proof

after proof, and they still do nothing.

I sure can't compete with the oil and gas industry PR budget

that they use to pump propaganda at us.

That tank is emitting a lot of methane.

I'm showing their dirty secrets that can't be seen without this

optical gas-imaging camera. >> NARRATOR: ExxonMobil would

not grant us any interviews. In a statement, it said it has

been an industry leader in the effort to reduce methane

emissions, and has been advancing technology to detect

leaks. ♪ ♪

As Sharon Wilson was sounding the alarm, a growing number of

scientists were waking up to the dangers of methane.

Including the man who'd helped pioneer the process of fracking.

>> I became very much more concerned about climate change

when I realized what shale gas and oil was going to unleash.

That's the right word, unleash. (chuckling): This is trite.

Unleash a tsunami of oil and gas, yes.

That's what it did. That's when I started feeling

contradictory regret and pride. (chuckles)

Pride that we had done good engineering work to help

somebody eventually figure out how to do it, regret that we had

figured, we had helped somebody figure out how to do

it. (chuckles)

By going to shale, we're going to prolong the fossil fuel

industry, and by prolonging the fossil fuel industry, we're

going to exacerbate climate change.

>> NARRATOR: By now, Tony Ingraffea was a civil

engineering professor at Cornell University, and had

spent years advising oil and gas companies.

In 2011, he and colleagues published a critical report on

the climate impact of fracking. >> What Bob Howarth and I locked

on to was this very crucial point, which is, it's not just

CO2 that's driving climate change-- it's also methane.

The paper said the climate impact of shale gas is such that

it's worse than coal, worse than oil.

And the reaction to the paper was disturbing.

I had never been a co-author of a paper that created a political

firestorm. >> NARRATOR: The criticism came

from many sides-- including the National Academy of Sciences

and the leading industry group, America's National Gas

Alliance. They claimed the report had

overestimated the level of methane leaks, and overstated

methane's impact as a greenhouse gas.

>> At first, we were pilloried, then we were ignored.

We had to endure a lot of personal attacks, for no good

reason. I can understand people saying

to me, "You're a traitor. You took their money for 25

years, you did their research, and now you're saying stop."

Yeah, okay, I am. ♪ ♪

>> NARRATOR: Criticism of the Cornell report also came from

another academic institution, M.I.T.'s influential Energy

Initiative, which had just published its own report

promoting natural gas as a bridge to get away from burning

coal and a way to reduce CO2 emissions.

>> Methane emissions are a very important greenhouse gas that

needs to be addressed. It's just that methane emissions

from the oil and gas industry are actually a minority of

methane emissions. There are some very, very tough

problems: agriculture, dairy farms-- enormous methane

emitters. Now, fortunately, in contrast to

carbon dioxide, methane has a relatively short lifetime in the

atmosphere. (chuckling): That doesn't mean

one should ignore it. It means that one better

eliminate new emissions. >> NARRATOR: Ernest Moniz led

M.I.T.'s Future of Natural Gas study, which said the Cornell

work was based on "unsubstantiated" estimates.

Moniz would not talk about it in our interview.

Nor would he answer questions about the funding for the study,

other than to say it was "transparent."

>> The point is, we always believe in transparency, and so

that's... Yeah.

>> NARRATOR: The M.I.T. report's major sponsor was Aubrey

McClendon's American Clean Skies Foundation.

>> We really wanted M.I.T. in particular, because they had

been the authoritative source testifying before Congress on

all these other energies, and we thought, "We want the

gold standard." And we said, "We believe this is

the next big thing." >> NARRATOR: Denise Bode

was on the advisory committee for the M.I.T. study.

>> We made our case that it was a valid emerging issue that

they could add credibility to, and then, and, and then they

accepted it. >> NARRATOR: Bolstered by the

M.I.T. study, the industry narrative on natural gas would

take hold in Washington. >> I have the high privilege

and the distinct honor of presenting to you the president

of the United States. (audience cheers and applauds)

>> NARRATOR: It became part of President Obama's 2012 state of

the union address, where he unveiled his ambitious new

energy policy. (audience applauding)

>> This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above

strategy that develops every available source of American

energy. (audience applauds and cheers)

>> NARRATOR: He would push for investments in renewable energy,

but he also doubled down on oil and natural gas.

(audience applauding) >> We have a supply of

natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years.

(audience applauding) And my administration will

take every possible action to safely develop this energy.

(audience applauding) >> Natural gas, from an

economic perspective, the costs that were passed on consumers

in terms of lower energy bills was a net plus.

And then, we saw that fitting squarely in the climate agenda.

>> Renewables weren't quite there yet.

The nuclear projects were just proving to be too expensive.

And natural gas could provide continuous 24-hour generation.

>> Thank you. God bless you and God bless the

United States of America. (audience applauding)

>> We became an oil and gas country.

It affected our politics, it affected our economy, and it

begins to really affect kind of how we look at the world, the

United States looks at the world.

>> NARRATOR: The U.S. had become the largest producer of

natural gas in the world, helping spark a decline in CO2

emissions, even as studies were piling up showing a dangerous

rise in methane emissions. >> Doing something for the

first time, taking advantage of this new resource,

you don't always know what you don't know.

And over time, what we learned about methane emissions as it

relates to natural gas is very, very scary.

>> NARRATOR: Heather Zichal would go on to advise the

natural gas industry, then lobby for renewables.

>> I think the Obama administration tried to be very

conscious of everything, all the implications of the shale

revolution. But at the time, I think early

Obama administration years, we didn't have access to the kinds

of information that we would have liked to and needed to have

had to take the proper regulatory steps to ensure as

safe and climate-friendly production as possible.

>> NARRATOR: At M.I.T., Ernest Moniz says they've also learned

a lot since their early research.

>> No, I think, I think it's come much more into focus

recently. We were concerned about, about

leaks, but I think the, the quantitative scale of the issue

has become more clear in recent years, with better measurement

devices, including atmospheric measurements, which are now

becoming much more commonplace. >> NARRATOR: Moniz would become

energy secretary in Barack Obama's second term, where he

helped advocate for the natural gas boom.

But by then, natural gas had lost its support from the Sierra

Club and Carl Pope, who had allowed the group to take

millions of dollars from Chesapeake Energy.

>> The natural gas industry-- excuse me, the gas industry, but

you know, they've got, they've trained me to call it the

natural gas industry, nothing natural about it.

I didn't understand how strong they were.

I thought the big player was oil-- I thought gas was kind of

a junior cousin. Gas turns out to have an awful

lot of political strength. And Americans had been more

fully sold on the myth that gas was green.

♪ ♪ >> Firefighters are worried

that a deadly Southern California wildfire could

continue to spread this afternoon.

>> Nine major wildfires that are burning right now across

the state of California. >> 2012 is shaping up to be one

of the worst fire seasons on record.

>> By the second term of the Obama administration, his

administration was starting to get more serious about climate.

You know, it's sort of, it's climate versus energy

production, he's starting to lean more on climate.

(crowd cheering and applauding) >> President Obama, do the right

thing! >> NARRATOR: There had been

mounting public pressure to take on the industry.

>> (chanting): Stop the pipeline!

Yes, we can! >> There really was a

multi-prong attack on the oil and gas industry, but

specifically at this fundamental nature of the oil and gas

industry. You've been around for a long

time, but your products are problematic, and you've known

that they've been problematic. You don't deserve to continue

operating in the long term. >> NARRATOR: Obama would begin

a major climate push that would lead to the historic

Paris Agreement in 2015. >> In Paris this morning, a

potential landmark deal is being revealed on climate change.

>> The first global agreement to limit...

>> NARRATOR: Under the binding international treaty,

countries pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

>> The Paris Agreement is adopted.

>> I've come here personally, as the leader of the world's

largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say

that the United States of America not only recognizes our

role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to

do something about it. >> NARRATOR: Back at home, the

Obama administration was already taking steps to meet the

treaty's obligations, proposing new climate regulations,

including limits on methane gas emissions.

He was pursuing a major plan to move away from fossil fuels

like coal and promote renewables like wind and solar.

It was called the Clean Power Plan.

>> President Obama's Clean Power Plan, the idea was that, you

know, by 2030, we could reduce the carbon emissions by 32%

compared to 2005 levels. That was an ambitious,

ambitious effort. >> NARRATOR: ExxonMobil and

others in the fossil fuel industry had publicly come out

in support of the Paris Agreement.

But almost immediately, Obama's new climate agenda came under

attack from Republicans around the country.

>> He declared a war on fossil fuels.

It's all about an anti-fossil fuel strategy to shut down coal

generation and fossil fuel generation and the generation

of electricity, and you should be very concerned about that,

because what is it going to be replaced with?

If it's renewables, wind, the cost of that is going to be

insurmountable for this country. And I'm so thankful that we have

attorneys general across this country who have been on the

front line, holding the president accountable as he's

acted in that fashion. >> It may be the most critical

time in our nation's history to have a group of conservative,

rule-of-law, Republican attorneys general in office.

>> These issues matter. >> NARRATOR: Oklahoma Attorney

General Scott Pruitt rallied a coalition of like-minded

Republican A.Gs. >> Whether it's involving

fighting the E.P.A., fighting the National Labor Relations

Board... >> NARRATOR: The coalition was

backed by coal, oil, and natural gas companies and their

allies, including ExxonMobil and Koch Industries.

>> We are pro-business... >> The oil and gas industry,

they shifted into counterattack. They were not gonna let

someone else run the narrative. So, they fought back, you know,

with tooth and nail. >> Every Republican attorney

general matters. >> NARRATOR: The attorneys

general sued the administration, claiming the

federal government was overstepping its authority and

infringing on states' rights. >> In my state, I've filed 30

different lawsuits against E.P.A.

Almost every one of those has been in concert, in

collaboration, with the other attorneys general.

>> NARRATOR: They argued that methane emissions from oil and

gas had actually been going down in the U.S., even though

numerous studies showed them rising.

>> Natural gas is a key opportunity to further improve

environment. Methane emissions are down in

the United States, yet they are pursuing a methane regulatory

regime. Why do we need to go out and

regulate it even more than it already is?

>> The industry came out fighting those methane

regulations like crazy. They said that they didn't need

rules. They could do this voluntarily.

I'm gonna just set up here. They were marketing natural gas

as part of the climate solution. All the while, I was collecting

more and more evidence out on the ground, out in the middle of

it, of these horrible, horrible emissions.

I went to D.C. more than once, and testified for the Obama

rules. The industry was saying one

thing, and I was presenting this evidence that showed that what

they were saying was not true. It was never true.

>> NARRATOR: The industry was also going after another key

part of Obama's agenda: the push to support renewable

energy sources. >> We were going gangbusters

trying to put as many products in the ground as possible.

I mean, it seemed like the greatest time to be in

renewables. >> NARRATOR: Patrick Woodson had

been building wind farms across the U.S. for years with

bipartisan support. >> Both parties were talking

about how great wind was and how great renewables were.

Then you started to see the political camps shift.

And all of a sudden, Democrats became for renewable expansion.

And many Republicans became against.

>> NARRATOR: Obama's Clean Power Plan was giving wind and solar a

financial boost against less expensive fossil fuels like

natural gas. It would cause a long-lasting

backlash. >> The false promise of

renewable energy in Texas is taking billions of dollars from

consumers and taxpayers. More than $13 billion of your

money is being diverted to government-subsidized wind

farms... >> There started to emerge

national opposition to, to projects.

>> ...negatively impacting property values and the

environment, while at the same time...

>> Groups were banding together that were funded, in large part,

by certain members of the oil and gas community.

All of a sudden, you realized there was a playbook now.

They generally would start with the idea that the turbines were

too noisy. That they were eyesores.

Eventually, if they couldn't get traction with those arguments,

they would move on to the, they're dangerous.

They cause disease. There's not a study behind them.

Mostly they were efforts to kind of derail local permitting.

Ultimately, they would also try and put roadblocks in to how you

built them-- you know, create distance barriers, or noise

barriers, or, or other things to make it harder to put projects

together. >> When you start seeing massive

lobbying efforts backed by fossil fuel interests, or

conservative think tanks, or the Koch brothers pushing for

new laws to roll back renewable energy standards, or prevent new

clean-energy businesses from succeeding, that's a problem.

>> NARRATOR: Charles Koch has said he was not trying to

prevent clean energy from succeeding, and he was "all

for" any kind of energy business that could succeed in

the marketplace. ExxonMobil did not respond to

questions about its support for the Republican A.Gs. that

opposed the Clean Power Plan, but said it backs a variety of

organizations that "promote sound public policy."

Obama's Clean Power Plan would get stalled in the legal fight

with the attorneys general, and his presidency would end with

his climate agenda in peril. >> The 45th president of the

United States of America, Donald J. Trump.

(crowd cheers and applauds) >> NARRATOR: The next president

would finish it off. >> We will determine the course

of America, and the world, for many, many years to come.

>> Mr. Trump, who once called global warming a hoax, signed

a sweeping executive order this week, calling for regulators to

rewrite President Obama's climate change policies.

>> NARRATOR: Two months after he became president, Donald Trump

joined Scott Pruitt, his pick to head the E.P.A., to kill

President Obama's Clean Power Plan.

>> Okay. >> Hear, hear.

>> Trump immediately scrapped that plan, so that dampened any

growth that would have come from that effort.

We had to sort of go on the defensive again.

Trump's vocal opposition to renewables and lack of faith in

science and technology were big concerns for a number of us.

>> There's been a change of direction.

The president has sent a very clear message that the last

eight years, where we had to choose between jobs and the

environment, those days are over-- the war on coal ended,

the war on fossil fuels ended. >> All right.

(all talking at once) >> When you look at the Trump

administration, who they brought in, the secretary of state, Rex

Tillerson, former C.E.O. of Exxon.

Heading up Department of Energy, Rick Perry, a former governor

of Texas. There were a lot of friends of

the oil and gas industry that went to Washington, D.C., with

the Trump administration. >> And how about these

Democrats, they want to get rid of oil.

(audience booing) They want to get rid of natural

gas. They want to go to wind.

Oh, darling, I just can't watch the show tonight, the wind had

just stopped blowing. (audience laughing)

(train horn blows) >> NARRATOR: Trump attempted to

roll back the Obama climate agenda.

His administration delayed or repealed more than two dozen

environmental rules and regulations, including those

on methane emissions. >> A reversal of tougher

Obama-era standards for rules on greenhouse gas emissions and

fuel economy. >> A plan that would

dramatically weaken pollution limits on coal-fired power

plants. >> New rules making it easier

for oil and gas companies to release methane.

>> NARRATOR: Pressure on the industry eased off even more

when President Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement.

>> We withdrew from the one- sided, horrible, horrible,

economically unfair, close your businesses down within three

years... Don't frack, don't drill.

We don't want any energy. The horrible Paris Climate

Accord that killed American jobs and shielded foreign

polluters. >> To pull out raises a

question of, where does the whole effort to reduce emissions

go? >> That sent a clear message,

globally, that the United States was not going to play a role as

a leader on climate. I mean, those were very good

years for the oil and gas industry in the United States.

>> The United States is now the number-one producer of oil and

natural gas anywhere in the world.

(audience cheers and applauds) ♪ ♪

>> NARRATOR: The industry's success would continue into a

new presidential administration...

>> We've won with the most votes ever cast on a presidential

ticket and... >> NARRATOR: ...despite growing

pressure to move away from fossil fuels.

>> Plans have been unveiled to rewire the global financial

sector. 450 firms and financial

institutions which control $130 trillion have pledged to

stop investing in fossil fuels. >> NARRATOR: And despite demands

for accountability. >> Fossil fuel companies that

deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of

climate change should be, must be held accountable.

>> NARRATOR: Across the country, attorneys general, this time

Democrats, have been filing lawsuits against ExxonMobil and

other companies. >> The Minnesota attorney

general is suing big oil companies, claiming they lied to

Minnesota consumers about climate change.

>> NARRATOR: ExxonMobil has fought back, claiming the

litigation is "politically motivated" and "without merit."

But the pressure is continuing in the courts and now in

Congress. >> A hearing on Capitol Hill

today, the C.E.Os. of the world's biggest oil companies,

Shell, Exxon, Chevron, and BP... >> A landmark hearing that puts

a spotlight on the role fossil fuels have played in

accelerating climate change. >> Apparent knowledge of it,

disinformation, misinformation. (gavel bangs)

>> The committee will come to order.

This is a historic hearing. For far too long, Big Oil has

escaped accountability for its central role...

>> NARRATOR: In October 2021, top oil executives were

questioned under oath about the industry's long history of

casting doubt on fossil-fuel- driven climate change.

>> We won't solve the climate crisis unless we solve the

misinformation crisis. >> I now recognize Mr. Khanna,

who is the chairman of the subcommittee on the environment.

>> Thank you, Madam Chair. First, let me thank...

We initiated the investigation to find out what the

misinformation was, what these companies knew, when they knew

it. And it marks the beginning of

scrutiny on them. They've been able to avoid it,

duck it, not have to deal with it, and now they're realizing

they're not gonna get away with this.

What do you have to say to America's children born into a

burning world? Find it in yourself today to

tell the truth. It will be better for your

companies' futures, and will be better for humanity's future.

>> My name is Darren Woods. I'm the chairman and chief

executive officer of ExxonMobil Corporation.

ExxonMobil provides an essential component of modern society:

affordable, reliable, and abundant energy.

ExxonMobil has long recognized that climate change is real and

poses serious risks, but there are no easy answers.

ExxonMobil is committed to being part of the solution.

>> It was nice kind of political theater.

Democrats calling the big oil and gas companies before them,

questioned them about their history with climate, what

they're doing right now. >> I don't even want to argue

that, Mr., Mr. Woods, I don't even want to argue that.

Can you just acknowledge that it was a mistake?

>> I don't think it's fair to judge...

>> I'm sure Darren Woods, the C.E.O. of Exxon, doesn't like to

be called before Congress and yelled at and berated, but I

also don't think he's losing sleep over it.

If he is losing sleep, he's probably losing sleep over

whether his investors really want to stick with Exxon over

the long term and whether they have a plan to make money in a

world where, you know, maybe oil and gas is, is a declining

source of energy. >> We launched a low-carbon

solutions business to commercialize carbon capture and

other technologies. >> NARRATOR: In his testimony,

Woods touted ExxonMobil's investment in technology to

reduce CO2 emissions. >> Carbon capture and storage

can remove more than 90% of CO2 emissions from these carbon-

intensive... >> NARRATOR: ExxonMobil has

announced plans to spend billions on technology that

captures CO2 and stores it in the ground.

>> NARRATOR: Just as the industry did with natural gas

years before, they're promoting it as a climate solution.

>> It's not at all surprising that fossil fuel companies

would promote ideas and policies that enable the continued use

of fossil fuels, so that they can sell these fossil fuels.

Flows over... >> NARRATOR: Charles Harvey is

an expert on carbon storage, and was a scientific adviser to a

carbon storage company. He calls the industry's current

carbon capture push a "false solution" because it is

diverting needed investment away from renewable energy sources.

>> There's sort of a happy story here, that carbon capture and

sequestration is a way to reduce emissions and keep our existing

fossil fuel companies going. But it's not actually the

direction to go. It's sort of the easy direction

to propose to go, but it's not the direction to go to actually

stop climate change or, or prevent, prevent global

warming. ♪ ♪

>> A dire warning and a stark reality.

>> There's really one key message that emerges: we are

out of time. >> Drive, bro!

>> Atmospheric methane is skyrocketing.

>> (speaking Mandarin) >> The International Energy

Agency says the world needs to stop drilling for oil and gas

to save the planet. >> NARRATOR: The warnings about

climate change are at their most intense ever.

But the industry is now raising its own intense warnings, about

the perils of moving away from fossil fuels.

>> Everybody's saying that we need to be conscious about

climate-- yeah, I agree. But there's consequences to

actions. >> NARRATOR: Charif Souki is one

of the titans of the natural gas export business in the U.S.

>> I think we're dealing with a world where we've decided to

make the hydrocarbon industry the enemy, because we've

convinced ourself that we must decarbonize.

>> NARRATOR: His company, along with ExxonMobil and others, are

embarking on massive natural gas expansion projects.

Nobody has been confronted with what the cost of this

energy transition is. You still need to increase

energy by 50% in order to satisfy the aspiration of 90% of

the world. 85% of the world's energy is

hydrocarbons. There is no realistic way by

which you can say we're gonna eliminate hydrocarbons out of

the energy mix. Renewables is about five

percent. So before it becomes a

significant piece of the energy mix, it's going to take decades.

It's not going to happen overnight.

(explosion roars) >> NARRATOR: And unpredictable

world events, like the war in Ukraine, make it even harder.

>> As a global energy crisis emerges, exacerbated by Russia's

war in Ukraine... >> Oil prices have been

significantly impacted by the war in the last few weeks.

>> The economic toll on Americans only getting worse.

>> President Biden is acutely aware of this, he has said he

will do everything he can. >> NARRATOR: In his 2022 state

of the union address, President Biden outlined his response to

the new energy crisis. >> Tonight, I can announce the

United States has worked with 30 other countries to release

60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the world.

America will lead that effort, releasing 30 million barrels of

our own strategic petroleum reserve.

And we stand ready to do more if necessary, united with our

allies. ♪ ♪

>> NARRATOR: At the same time, the president is pursuing

a climate agenda more aggressive than any of his

predecessors, pushing the U.S. to cut greenhouse gas

emissions to as close to zero as possible by 2050, a goal known

as net zero. >> The irony of a climate

president, and presidents who are pushing for more climate

action, is that we all want a clean climate, but what we want

more than that is to be able to fill up our cars below four

dollars a gallon, and when prices start to, to creep up,

people get unhappy. The way I think about it is that

we're still very much in the fossil fuel age.

You know, as much as they talk an aspirational game about

net zero by 2030 or 2040, we're not there yet.

And a lot can get in the way. As we sit here in 2022...

(inhales) We still need oil.

>> I'm terrified that we're not going to do nearly enough fast

enough. The clock is ticking.

It's been ticking for some time. I'm not terribly optimistic that

America is going to get its act together in a way that is going

to allow us to kind of make a meaningful difference.

>> I'm worried we wasted the decade.

And now we're playing catch up. What climate change means to me

is looking in the eyes of my grandchildren...

And wondering what kind of hell they're going to pay.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline...

>> This is just a really, really dirty sight...

>> By prolonging the fossil fuel industry we're going to

exacerbate climate change. >> For more of our reporting on

climate change, including 10 years of documentaries on

environmental threats. >> Connect with Frontline on

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and stream anytime on the PBS

Video App, YouTube or pbs.org/frontline.

Captioned by Media Access Group

at WGBH Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org.

>> For more on this and other Frontline programs visit our

website at pbs.org/frontline. >> To order Frontline's

"The Power of Big Oil" on DVD visit Shop PBS or call

1.800.PLAY.PBS. ♪ ♪

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