Houston must lead fight for climate change

Could Houston — the world headquarters of the oil and gas industry — take the lead in solving the world’s global warming problems?

Chronicle columnist Chris Tomlinson says no. After last month’s Houston LowCarbon Energy Summit, sponsored by the Center for Houston’s Future, Tomlinson wrote the city’s impetus for change “remains too weak, inertia is too strong.”

Fair point. Yet at that same summit, we saw growing momentum.

For example, when asked if Houston has a branding problem related to global warming, Jason Klein, vice president of U.S. energy transition strategy at Shell, said: “It’s not just a branding challenge. It’s an actual challenge that we need to face.”

Houston needs to attract talent, investment and innovation, Klein said.

“If the people who want to do those things think that we don’t even like to talk about climate change, they’re not going to come here. They’re going to go San Francisco,” he said.

Global warming also poses two even more serious challenges to our city.

First, efforts to slow climate change are likely to reduce the world’s consumption of oil and gas, and slowing growth in that industry would disproportionately affect our regional economy. A recent Center study details how the Houston region’s supercharged growth — exceeding peer cities and the overall U.S. economy over several past decades — has been directly related to our presence in high-multiplier job areas in oil and gas, and the related service, equipment, engineering and construction sectors.

Second, we are a coastal region. Our residents, refining industry, port and other infrastructure are vulnerable to rising sea levels and ever more powerful storms.

If we address those weaknesses, they could become our strengths. Building the resilient and sustainable infrastructure that we need could make us a leader in those fields, summit speakers noted. For example, we should incorporate distributed and renewable energy, using smart grids and smart infrastructure to reduce our city’s exposure to severe weather and reduce emissions.

Making our buildings more energy-efficient could lower emissions. And city and community leaders stressed that we need more and cleaner public transportation, be it electric- or hydrogen-based, and that we must change land-use and road policies so that we don’t need to continue expanding our highways and parking lots at the same rate.

Another unique opportunity for Houston to lead involves our port: shifting marine operations to cleaner fuels, including hydrogen and liquefied natural gas, and continue electrifying port facilities.

But larger prizes for Houston — and the world — lie with Houston leading the way in reducing global oil and gas-related emissions. Occidental Petroleum’s vice president of low-carbon strategies, Charlene Olivia Russell, detailed how Oxy is aggressively pursuing not only carbon capture, utilization and storage, but a range of technologies to deepen reductions in carbon emissions.

Other corporate panelists outlined efforts to reduce methane emissions. Recent announcements by ExxonMobil and Chevron also highlighted their plans to source portions of their oil asset power needs through renewable energy.

Multiple panelists noted it’s not feasible to meet the world’s energy needs by abruptly shifting entirely to renewable energy. Meeting the dual challenge of bringing energy to emerging markets, while meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, requires that many actions be taken in parallel: working rapidly to reduce emissions from oil and gas; recycling plastics and chemicals into feedstocks; ramping up renewables; continuing to improve energy efficiency; and innovating to create economically viable and scalable low or no-carbon fuels.

Business and community leaders made Houston’s advantages clear. We know how to create world-class, large-scale infrastructure. We can invent and translate new technology, deploy capital at scale, and handle sophisticated trading and risk management. Our city’s culture supports experimentation and tolerates failure. Houston’s industry and residents have a can-do attitude and a proven ability to shape markets to benefit business and consumers.

That’s why Houston must lead. We must be a role model for global sustainability. It’s not just our economy that’s at stake or the resilience of our local community. The world is counting on us.

“Houston, it’s the energy capital of the world,” said BP Senior Vice President Cindy Yeilding, “and we want to stay that way.”

Perlman is president and CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future, and Steinhubl is a board member and leads the board’s strategic initiatives committee. The center brings business, government and community stakeholders together to engage in fact-based strategic planning and collaboration on issues of great importance to the region.