European oil and gas companies support carbon tax
Last week, oil and gas companies with a total of $1.4 trillion in revenues - Shell, BP, Total, Statoil, Eni and the BG Group - sent this letter to the UN:
Dear Excellencies,
Climate change is a critical challenge for our world. As major companies from the oil & gas sector, we recognize both the importance of the climate challenge and the importance of energy to human life and well-being. We acknowledge that the current trend of greenhouse gas emissions is in excess of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is needed to limit the temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The challenge is how to meet greater energy demand with less CO2. We stand ready to play our part.
Our companies are already taking a number of actions to help limit emissions, such as growing the share of gas in our production, making energy efficiency improvements in our operations and products, providing renewable energy, investing in carbon capture and storage, and exploring new low-carbon technologies and business models. These actions are a key part of our mission to provide the greatest number of people with access to sustainable and secure energy. For us to do more, we need governments across the world to provide us with clear, stable, long-term, ambitious policy frameworks. This would reduce uncertainty and help stimulate investments in the right low carbon technologies and the right resources at the right pace.
We believe that a price on carbon should be a key element of these frameworks. If governments act to price carbon, this discourages high carbon options and encourages the most efficient ways of reducing emissions widely, including reduced demand for the most carbon intensive fossil fuels, greater energy efficiency, the use of natural gas in place of coal, increased investment in carbon capture and storage, renewable energy, smart buildings and grids, off-grid access to energy, cleaner cars and new mobility business models and behaviors. Our companies are already exposed to a price on carbon emissions by participating in existing carbon markets and applying ‘shadow’ carbon prices in our own businesses to test whether investments will be viable in a world where carbon has a higher price.
Yet, whatever we do to implement carbon pricing ourselves will not be sufficient or commercially sustainable unless national governments introduce carbon pricing even-handedly and eventually enable global linkage between national systems. Some economies have not yet taken this step, and this could create uncertainty about investment and disparities in the impact of policy on businesses. Therefore, we call on governments, including at the UNFCCC negotiations in Paris and beyond to:
• introduce carbon pricing systems where they do not yet exist at the national or regional levels
• create an international framework that could eventually connect national systems.
You can see the whole letter here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/267327870/Paying-for-Carbon-Letter
Of course they have not suddenly become "good guys". They have merely realized that a tax on carbon is likely. So, they want to get involved with designing it! The American companies Exxon and Chevron are still digging their heels in... as are coal companies.
Some interesting background about the chairman of Shell:
Ben van Beurden, the chief executive of Shell, has endorsed warnings that the world’s fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned unless some way is found to capture their carbon emissions. The oil boss has also predicted that the global energy system will become “zero carbon” by the end of the century, with his group obtaining a “very, very large segment” of its earnings from renewable power.
And in an admission that the growing opposition to Shell’s controversial search for oil in the Arctic was putting increasing pressure on him, van Beurden admitted he had gone on a “personal journey” to justify the decision to drill.
The Shell boss said he accepted the general premise contained in independent studies that have concluded that dangerous levels of global warming above 2°C will occur unless CO2 is buried or reserves are kept in the ground. “We cannot burn all the hydrocarbon resources we have on the planet in an unmitigated way and not expect to have a CO2 loading in the atmosphere that is often being linked to the 2°C scenario,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
“I am absolutely convinced that without a policy that will really enable and realise CCS (carbon capture and storage) on a large scale, we are not going to be able to stay within that CO2 emission budget.”
However, he did not admit that limiting global warming to 2°C is nearly impossible, more of a fantasy than a realistic plan... and he still drives a large BMW. For more on him, see:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/shell-boss-endorses-warnings-about-fossil-fuels-and-climate-change
For why the 2°C limit is unrealistic, read this:
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/22/5551004/two-degrees
Of course, it doesn't mean we should give up!
Last week, oil and gas companies with a total of $1.4 trillion in revenues - Shell, BP, Total, Statoil, Eni and the BG Group - sent this letter to the UN:
Dear Excellencies,
Climate change is a critical challenge for our world. As major companies from the oil & gas sector, we recognize both the importance of the climate challenge and the importance of energy to human life and well-being. We acknowledge that the current trend of greenhouse gas emissions is in excess of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is needed to limit the temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The challenge is how to meet greater energy demand with less CO2. We stand ready to play our part.
Our companies are already taking a number of actions to help limit emissions, such as growing the share of gas in our production, making energy efficiency improvements in our operations and products, providing renewable energy, investing in carbon capture and storage, and exploring new low-carbon technologies and business models. These actions are a key part of our mission to provide the greatest number of people with access to sustainable and secure energy. For us to do more, we need governments across the world to provide us with clear, stable, long-term, ambitious policy frameworks. This would reduce uncertainty and help stimulate investments in the right low carbon technologies and the right resources at the right pace.
We believe that a price on carbon should be a key element of these frameworks. If governments act to price carbon, this discourages high carbon options and encourages the most efficient ways of reducing emissions widely, including reduced demand for the most carbon intensive fossil fuels, greater energy efficiency, the use of natural gas in place of coal, increased investment in carbon capture and storage, renewable energy, smart buildings and grids, off-grid access to energy, cleaner cars and new mobility business models and behaviors. Our companies are already exposed to a price on carbon emissions by participating in existing carbon markets and applying ‘shadow’ carbon prices in our own businesses to test whether investments will be viable in a world where carbon has a higher price.
Yet, whatever we do to implement carbon pricing ourselves will not be sufficient or commercially sustainable unless national governments introduce carbon pricing even-handedly and eventually enable global linkage between national systems. Some economies have not yet taken this step, and this could create uncertainty about investment and disparities in the impact of policy on businesses. Therefore, we call on governments, including at the UNFCCC negotiations in Paris and beyond to:
• introduce carbon pricing systems where they do not yet exist at the national or regional levels
• create an international framework that could eventually connect national systems.
You can see the whole letter here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/267327870/Paying-for-Carbon-Letter
Of course they have not suddenly become "good guys". They have merely realized that a tax on carbon is likely. So, they want to get involved with designing it! The American companies Exxon and Chevron are still digging their heels in... as are coal companies.
Some interesting background about the chairman of Shell:
Ben van Beurden, the chief executive of Shell, has endorsed warnings that the world’s fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned unless some way is found to capture their carbon emissions. The oil boss has also predicted that the global energy system will become “zero carbon” by the end of the century, with his group obtaining a “very, very large segment” of its earnings from renewable power.
And in an admission that the growing opposition to Shell’s controversial search for oil in the Arctic was putting increasing pressure on him, van Beurden admitted he had gone on a “personal journey” to justify the decision to drill.
The Shell boss said he accepted the general premise contained in independent studies that have concluded that dangerous levels of global warming above 2°C will occur unless CO2 is buried or reserves are kept in the ground. “We cannot burn all the hydrocarbon resources we have on the planet in an unmitigated way and not expect to have a CO2 loading in the atmosphere that is often being linked to the 2°C scenario,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
“I am absolutely convinced that without a policy that will really enable and realise CCS (carbon capture and storage) on a large scale, we are not going to be able to stay within that CO2 emission budget.”
However, he did not admit that limiting global warming to 2°C is nearly impossible, more of a fantasy than a realistic plan... and he still drives a large BMW. For more on him, see:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/shell-boss-endorses-warnings-about-fossil-fuels-and-climate-change
For why the 2°C limit is unrealistic, read this:
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/22/5551004/two-degrees
Of course, it doesn't mean we should give up!
