2023-07-06 12:46:39
Emirati COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber says the oil and gas industry needs to “urgently decarbonize its operations.”
The Emirati President of COP28, Sultan Al-Jaber, on Thursday in Vienna appealed to oil and gas companies, particularly national ones, to commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, as long as the world consumes fossil fuels. For the president of the next UN climate conference in November-December in Dubai, the oil and gas industry must “urgently decarbonize its operations“. She must “take collective action to eliminate operational emissionsof greenhouse gases (say “scopes1 and 2), said Sultan Al-Jaber, responsible for coordinating and influencing the negotiations without being a decision maker himself.
These emissions represent 15 to 20% of the carbon footprint of the companies concerned, the vast majority coming from the combustion itself of products such as gasoline or gas. “The whole industry – international majors and national companies – must align to reach net zero by 2050 or before“, declared Sultan Al-Jaber, who also has the cap of CEO of the national Emirati company ADNOC, during a seminar of OPEC, the cartel of oil producing countries.
A “robust sustainable development”
Its appeal is aimed specifically at national companies (the “NOCin English), which are wholly or partly owned by States, as in the Gulf countries, China, Iran. Western private majors such as Shell, BP and TotalEnergies generally already have greenhouse gas reduction targets, and do not represent “what» 15% of world oil and gas production. On the other hand, national companies account for at least half of world oil and gas production. “Second, we must accelerate an industry-wide commitment to achieve near-zero methane emissions by 2030.“, he added about the other major greenhouse gas after CO2, which is the molecule of natural gas and escapes in large volumes from gas fields and pipelines.
«If we do that, it takes over a massive proportion of the emissions» operations of the sector. “Third, we need to monitor, measure and validate progress at every step of the process“, he added. Sultan Al-Jaber emphasizes, according to his antiphon, that “energy demand will only increase as half a billion more people will join our planet». «Therefore, the critical challenge of this century is to drastically reduce emissions, while maintaining robust sustainable development.repeats the President of COP28, who relies on still immature carbon capture technologies to reduce hydrocarbon-related emissions.
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