Not sure how many people have noticed, but energy executives have changed their tunes over the last six months; apparently, climate change is real, they are ready to fight it, and they have something called the energy transition.

To which, I reply with an Elvis refrain: Let’s see a little less conversation and a lot more action, please.

I have seen dozens of feel-good press releases and soft pledges. For years, I’ve listened to executives incrementally acknowledge the reality of global warming and slowly accept fossil fuel’s responsibility.

Platitudes, though, are insufficient. They need to promote a new paradigm.

Oil and gas leaders must demand a global price on carbon at the point of extraction. National governments must charge a carbon tax on every lump of coal, every barrel of oil, and every molecule of natural gas the moment it leaves the ground.

Tomlinson’s Take: U.S. oil and gas companies lag on climate pledges

Companies such as Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and Total have voiced support for a carbon tax, but they’ve been squishy. There is a big difference between submitting to a carbon price and actively telling lawmakers they need one to spur innovation within their industry.

Details are always the tricky part, and if we’re going to rely on science and economics, as these executives often insist, then the tax should equal the cost of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Mathematically, it makes sense.

If human-produced carbon dioxide is warming the planet, and we need to reduce it, then the tax on future emissions should equal the remediation cost. But carbon capture, which oil companies promise to build, currently costs between $94 and $232 a ton. That’s much more than the $20 to $40 a ton, companies are recommending.

Such a significant tax, though, would produce positive behaviors. First, higher fossil fuel costs would make renewable energy and electric vehicles super competitive. Second, companies would develop all those carbon capture projects they’ve promised will solve the climate problem.

Smart energy companies would adopt a circular economy strategy, producing carbon-based fuels and then capturing the emissions to create a zero-emission loop. Credits for the captured carbon would neutralize the tax. As carbon capture gets cheaper, governments could reduce the tax.

Executives should also support a tax on the plastic pellets used to make the polyethylene garbage ruining our oceans and waterways. Governments could encourage another circular economy by granting tax credits for collecting plastic refuse, thereby make plastic recycling as profitable aluminum.

Every economist will tell you that forcing polluters to pay the actual costs of their behavior is the most market efficient method of regulation. Business leaders should embrace it because the alternatives are bans and mandates, which do not allow companies to find innovative solutions.

Cleaning up the natural gas supply chain, though, will require prescriptive tactics. Responsible energy leaders should demand stricter federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from the wellhead to the end-user. The new rules should include a tax on flaring, the industry’s horrible, filthy habit of burning millions of dollars of natural gas rather than capturing it.

If drillers captured all of the natural gas flared last year in the Permian Basin and sent it power plants in China, it would have eliminated the need for 15.8 million metric tons of coal, according to research from Rice University’s Baker Institute. That’s why we need new pipelines, and why we need a ban on flaring.

Tomlinson’s Take: Collapse in oil prices a glimpse of the industry’s future

Responsible companies already minimize flaring, but absent any strict limits, regulators give irresponsible drillers an economic advantage. The industry should demand better from all participants, not only those with a conscience.

Lastly, energy executives should demand an overhaul of electricity markets so that companies no longer lose money when they generate less power. Currently, generators only make more money when customers consume more electricity.

Utilities cut spending on energy efficiency programs for the second year in a row in 2018, according to a survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. If companies could sell electricity as a service, at a flat monthly rate, they would profit from selling less and spending more on efficiency.

Most of these recommendations are market-based solutions based on sound science and economics that would address the most critical problems within energy markets. None of these proposals involve banning hydraulic fracking or mandating renewable energy replacement.

More importantly, these recommendations provide opportunities for energy companies to stay in business and make healthy profits for shareholders. Admittedly, companies would need to devise new business plans, but climate change is going to force their hands anyway, so why not get ahead of it?

Oh, I know, because Wall Street wants profits, and that’s who these executives obey.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

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chris.tomlinson@chron.com