OGCI – Impact Of Global Warming
With the impact of climate changes big oil and gas companies are now stepping in to cut their contributions to global warming.
A meeting organized by the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, (OGCI) brought top executives from firms representing one-third of the world’s oil and gas production, including major companies from Europe, Brazil, China, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
The meeting was held as governments and activists are pressuring the industry to become part of the solution on global warming.
Thirteen companies like BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell PC gathered in New York Couple of weeks ago to acknowledge the need to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. But they still have a long road ahead filled with political and technological challenges. The importance of petroleum will remain a major key source of fuel for growing population around the world.
“The product portfolio will have to evolve, and I think we have a role in making that evolution,” Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said at the forum. But, he added, “all these things we cannot do by forcing it down people’s throats. In the end it is the consumer that has to decide.”
The OGCI was founded in 2014 after years of negotiations, Chevron Corp, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum Corp have agreed to join the initiative. As U.S President Donald Trump efforts to relax rules covering greenhouse gas emissions.
The companies present at the summit announced a collective pledge to cut the rate of heat-trapping methane pollution from their operations to one-fifth by 2025, it would reduce the overall emissions by 350,000 tons per year. The creation of a $1.3 billion investment portfolio fund to aim to cut vehicles emissions, oil wells, concrete production and other top sources of greenhouse gases.
“If we do not provide the energy that is required, you will see an impact on the global economy,” said Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., better known as Saudi Aramco.
The energy sector produced an average of 68% of the global greenhouse-gas pollution, with oil and gas accounting for half of the emissions per last year report by the International Energy Agency in Paris.
The OGCI’s methane pledge sets a good standard practice for companies, but we still need to make sure policies are reflecting those changes.
We need to see what practices and technologies can help this effort. It is a step into the right direction, let see how the industry is going to make those changes.