[✔️] November 28, 2023- Global Warming News Digest |

Tue Nov 28 13:36:40 EST 2023

/*November *//*28, 2023*/

/[ Thoughtful, wise, informative - video 15 min - schooling refiners  ]/
*How can we stop burning fossil fuels if we still need everything else 
they make?*
Just Have a Think
Nov 26, 2023
Petroleum-based products like pharmaceuticals, electronics, fertilizers, 
plastics and a host of other crucial modern world commodities are all 
impossible to make without first producing hundreds of millions of 
tonnes of gasoline, kerosene, and diesel. It's just the way the process 
works. At least that's what the fossil fuel industry would like you to 
believe. Except, that is NOT TRUE. An independent petroleum industry 
consultant explains how it REALLY works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYWLpdGgJe4

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/[ IEA Reports The Oil and Gas Industry in Net Zero Transitions ]/
*Oil and gas industry faces moment of truth – and opportunity to adapt – 
as clean energy transitions advance*

Producers must choose between contributing to a deepening climate crisis 
or becoming part of the solution by embracing the shift to clean energy, 
IEA special report says

Oil and gas producers face pivotal choices about their role in the 
global energy system amid a worsening climate crisis fuelled in large 
part by their core products, according to a major new special report 
from the IEA that shows how the industry can take a more responsible 
approach and contribute positively to the new energy economy.

The Oil and Gas Industry in Net Zero Transitions analyses the 
implications and opportunities for the industry that would arise from 
stronger international efforts to reach energy and climate targets. 
Released ahead of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, the special report 
sets out what the global oil and gas sector would need to do to align 
its operations with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Even under today’s policy settings, global demand for both oil and gas 
is set to peak by 2030, according to the latest IEA projections. 
Stronger action to tackle climate change would mean clear declines in 
demand for both fuels. If governments deliver in full on their national 
energy and climate pledges, demand would fall 45% below today's level by 
2050. In a pathway to reaching net zero emissions by mid-century, which 
is necessary to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C 
within reach, oil and gas use would decline by more than 75% by 2050.

Yet the oil and gas sector – which provides more than half of global 
energy supply and employs nearly 12 million workers worldwide – has been 
a marginal force at best in transitioning to a clean energy system, 
according to the report. Oil and gas companies currently account for 
just 1% of clean energy investment globally – and 60% of that comes from 
just four companies.

“The oil and gas industry is facing a moment of truth at COP28 in Dubai. 
With the world suffering the impacts of a worsening climate crisis, 
continuing with business as usual is neither socially nor 
environmentally responsible,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. 
“Oil and gas producers around the world need to make profound decisions 
about their future place in the global energy sector. The industry needs 
to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and 
climate goals – which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly 
large amounts of carbon capture are the solution. This special report 
shows a fair and feasible way forward in which oil and gas companies 
take a real stake in the clean energy economy while helping the world 
avoid the most severe impacts of climate change.”

The global oil and gas industry encompasses a large and diverse range of 
players – from small, specialised operators to huge national oil 
companies. Attention often focuses on the role of the private sector 
majors, but they own less than 13% of global oil and gas production and 
reserves.

Every company’s transition strategy can and should include a plan to 
reduce emissions from its own operations, according to the report. The 
production, transport and processing of oil and gas results in nearly 
15% of global energy-related greenhouse emissions – equal to all 
energy-related greenhouse gas emissions from the United States. As 
things stand, companies with targets to reduce their own emissions 
account for less than half of global oil and gas output.

To align with a 1.5 °C scenario, the industry’s own emissions need to 
decline by 60% by 2030. The emissions intensity of oil and gas producers 
with the highest emissions is currently five-to-ten times above those 
with the lowest, showing the vast potential for improvements. 
Furthermore, strategies to reduce emissions from methane – which 
accounts for half of the total emissions from oil and gas operations – 
are well-known and can typically be pursued at low cost.

While oil and gas production is vastly lower in transitions to net zero 
emissions, it will not disappear – even in a 1.5 °C scenario. Some 
investment in oil and gas supply is needed to ensure the security of 
energy supply and provide fuel for sectors in which emissions are harder 
to abate, according to the report. Yet not every oil and gas company 
will be able to maintain output – requiring consumers to send clear 
signals on their direction and speed of travel so that producers can 
make informed decisions on future spending.

The USD 800 billion currently invested in the oil and gas sector each 
year is double what is required in 2030 on a pathway that limits warming 
to 1.5 °C. In that scenario, declines in demand are sufficiently steep 
that no new long-lead-time conventional oil and gas projects are needed. 
Some existing oil and gas production would even need to be shut in.

In transitions to net zero, oil and gas is set to become a less 
profitable and riskier business over time. The report’s analysis finds 
that the current valuation of private oil and gas companies could fall 
by 25% from USD 6 trillion today if all national energy and climate 
goals are reached, and by up to 60% if the world gets on track to limit 
global warming to 1.5 °C.

Opportunities lie ahead despite these challenges. The report finds that 
the oil and gas sector is well placed to scale up some crucial 
technologies for clean energy transitions. In fact, some 30% of the 
energy consumed in 2050 in a decarbonised energy system comes from 
technologies that could benefit from the industry’s skills and resources 
– including hydrogen, carbon capture, offshore wind and liquid biofuels.

However, this would require a step-change in how the sector allocates 
its financial resources. The oil and gas industry invested around USD 20 
billion in clean energy in 2022, or roughly 2.5% of its total capital 
spending. The report finds that producers looking to align with the aims 
of the Paris Agreement would need to put 50% of their capital 
expenditures towards clean energy projects by 2030, on top of the 
investment required to reduce emissions from their own operations.

The report also notes that carbon capture, currently the linchpin of 
many firms’ transition strategies, cannot be used to maintain the status 
quo. If oil and natural gas consumption were to evolve as projected 
under today’s policy settings, limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 °C 
would require an entirely inconceivable 32 billion tonnes of carbon 
captured for utilisation or storage by 2050, including 23 billion tonnes 
via direct air capture. The amount of electricity needed to power these 
technologies would be greater than the entire world’s electricity demand 
today.

“The fossil fuel sector must make tough decisions now, and their choices 
will have consequences for decades to come,” Dr Birol said. “Clean 
energy progress will continue with or without oil and gas producers. 
However, the journey to net zero emissions will be more costly, and 
harder to navigate, if the sector is not on boar

https://www.iea.org/news/oil-and-gas-industry-faces-moment-of-truth-and-opportunity-to-adapt-as-clean-energy-transitions-advance

/[The news archive -  Petroleum industry ]/
/*November 28, 2014 */
November 28, 2014:
• In the New York Times, Paul Krugman observes:

    "Of course, polluters will defend their right to pollute, but why
    can they count on Republican support? When and why did the
    Republican Party become the party of pollution?

    "For it wasn’t always thus. The Clean Air Act of 1970, the legal
    basis for the Obama administration’s environmental actions, passed
    the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 73 to 0, and was signed into law
    by Richard Nixon. (I’ve heard veterans of the E.P.A. describe the
    Nixon years as a golden age.) A major amendment of the law, which
    among other things made possible the cap-and-trade system that
    limits acid rain, was signed in 1990 by former President George H.W.
    Bush.

    "But that was then. Today’s Republican Party is putting a conspiracy
    theorist who views climate science as a 'gigantic hoax' in charge of
    the Senate’s environment committee. And this isn’t an isolated case.
    Pollution has become a deeply divisive partisan issue.

    "And the reason pollution has become partisan is that Republicans
    have moved right. A generation ago, it turns out, environment wasn’t
    a partisan issue: according to Pew Research, in 1992 an overwhelming
    majority in both parties favored stricter laws and regulation. Since
    then, Democratic views haven’t changed, but Republican support for
    environmental protection has collapsed.

    "So what explains this anti-environmental shift?

    "You might be tempted simply to blame money in politics, and there’s
    no question that gushers of cash from polluters fuel the
    anti-environmental movement at all levels. But this doesn’t explain
    why money from the most environmentally damaging industries, which
    used to flow to both parties, now goes overwhelmingly in one
    direction. Take, for example, coal mining. In the early 1990s,
    according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the industry
    favored Republicans by a modest margin, giving around 40 percent of
    its money to Democrats. Today that number is just 5 percent.
    Political spending by the oil and gas industry has followed a
    similar trajectory. Again, what changed?

    "One answer could be ideology. Textbook economics isn’t
    anti-environment; it says that pollution should be limited, albeit
    in market-friendly ways when possible. But the modern conservative
    movement insists that government is always the problem, never the
    solution, which creates the will to believe that environmental
    problems are fake and environmental policy will tank the economy.

    "My guess, however, is that ideology is only part of the story — or,
    more accurately, it’s a symptom of the underlying cause of the
    divide: rising inequality."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/opinion/paul-krugman-pollution-and-politics.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

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