Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: ConocoPhillips demonstrates strategic policy engagement oppositional to science-aligned climate policy. The company advocates for increased investment in oil and gas and retains a network of memberships to industry associations that actively oppose climate policy.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: ConocoPhillips demonstrate both positive and negative top-line positions on climate action. The company has acknowledged the IPCC’s science on climate change and appears broadly supportive of global-level climate targets. The company appears supportive of limiting global temperature increase to well below 2°C and has stated support for the Paris Agreement as per its website accessed in July 2025.
However, ConocoPhillips has maintained an unsupportive stance on the need for climate regulation. The company’s website, accessed in July 2025, advocated for market-based climate policies along with several conditions that could significantly weaken the scope and impact of climate regulations. ConocoPhillips recommends that climate policy should provide long-term investment certainty, avoid “overlapping or duplicating” existing programs, and avoid “undue harm” to the economy. In another webpage, accessed in July 2025, the company advocated for market-based policies over a regulatory approach to emissions reduction.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: ConocoPhillips shows broadly negative engagement on climate-related regulations. The company’s comments to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March 2024 opposed the methane fee proposed in the Inflation Reduction Act. Further, in October 2023 comments, ConocoPhillips opposed the methane reporting revisions under the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule. ConocoPhillips stated in the website, when accessed in July 2025, that its position on methane regulation is aligned with American Petroleum Institute's (API) position. Evidence of API's direct engagement on methane regulation shows that it advocated against the US EPA's 2022 Methane Regulation and 2023 Supplemental Methane Proposal.
The company did not support methane regulation for the oil and gas sector in Canada in February 2024 comments and appeared unsupportive of similar regulation in the EU in March 2025, as per a report from Hart Energy.
Positioning on Energy Transition: ConocoPhillips is opposed to an energy transition and advocates for increased production and use of oil and gas. In June 2025, the company advocated for the passage of the 2025 budget reconciliation bill in the US, which proposed the repeal or rapid phase out many of the Inflation Reduction Act's climate incentives and facilitates the build out of fossil fuel infrastructure in a joint letter to Senate leaders. Similarly, in Canada, the company sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney in April 2025 advocating for the expansion of oil and gas production. ConocoPhillips also advocated for new fossil gas exploration in November 2023 comments to Australia’s Future Gas Strategy consultation. The company promotes a global expansion in liquified natural gas (LNG) use, often misleadingly claiming that LNG use can reduce emissions, as evident in its 2024 Sustainability Report released in June 2025.
On the website, accessed in August 2025, the ConocoPhillips’ position on energy policies promotes a policy agenda that advocates against government intervention, protects consumer choice, and offers unrestricted industry access to energy sources, without commenting on specific energy types.
ConocoPhillips support for energy transition appears to be predicated on promoting technology-led solutions to decarbonize fossil fuels, which rely heavily on carbon capture and storage (CCS). In June 2023, the company’s comments to the EPA supported the development of CCS. However, the company also appears to promote CCS development in conjunction with oil and gas production, without clearly mentioning the need for CCS to accompany fossil fuel end use. In a July 2025 lobbyist registration filed on behalf of ConocoPhillips in Canada, the company disclosed its advocacy in support of the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Alliance ('Pathways Alliance') which promotes CCS development in oil sands operations.
Industry Association Governance: ConocoPhillips discloses a list of its industry associations, with limited details on the climate policy engagement activities undertaken through these groups. It has reviewed its alignment with eight industry associations on the website.
ConocoPhillips is a member of industry associations that actively oppose climate regulation, such as the American Petroleum Institute, US Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, National Association of Manufacturers, and International Oil & Gas Producers Association.
A detailed assessment of the company's corporate review on climate policy engagement can be found on InfluenceMap's CA100+ Investor Hub here.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information, see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q3 2025.