Climate change deniers changed their tune. They re-branded themselves as "climate skeptic", and from outright denialism they shifted to "climate change is happening, but it happened before and this one will not be as bad."
A lot of O&G industry has pivoted to "Only we can fix climate change!" then started mopping up federal grants and subsidies to build quixotic hydrogen fuel cell, carbon capture, and "clean" carbon projects that consistently fail to pay dividends.
Their Republican enablers then point to these failures and announce "climate change is a hoax! We should go back to Drill Here, Drill Now!"
We go back into a debate, while O&G profits surge and temperatures continue to rise. Then everyone in the economy panics when a foreign power takes the lead on battery and nuclear technology.