BP wants to achieve net-zero emissions
Energy producer hopes to reach target by 2050
Energy producer BP said it wants to eliminate or offset all carbon emissions from its operations and the oil and gas it sells to customers by 2050, an ambitious target born out of pressure to help combat climate change and keep making money.
London-based BP’s goals, announced Feb. 12, include becoming a net zero emitter in its own production of energy but also to reduce the carbon dioxide created by its customers as they use that energy - the bulk of emissions from the industry. Doing so would require not only a shift to cleaner energy sources but also coming up with new technologies to offset emissions or extract CO2 from the atmosphere.
As such, BP’s announcement was less of a detailed restructuring plan and more of a statement of intent from a company that is trying, like the wider energy industry, to ensure its long-term viability as the world decreases its reliance on fossil fuels in an effort to fight climate change.
“The world’s carbon budget is finite and running out fast; we need a rapid transition to net zero,’’ CEO Bernard Looney said in a statement. “We all want energy that is reliable and affordable, but that is no longer enough. It must also be cleaner.’’
More details are expected in September, raising doubts if it will be little more than a marketing plan, said Ben Inskeep, an Indianapolis-based clean energy policy analyst from EQ Research firm.
“We’re not sure how BP could hit this target,” he said.
BP has pledged to end a prior clean energy marketing campaign to “boost its image”, advocate for climate policies, and reconsider its membership in trade associations like the American Petroleum Association, Inskeep said.
“In the past, they’ve done nothing but oppose climate policies of all shapes and sizes,” he said.
For example, two years ago, BP spent $13 million lobbying against a proposed climate change tax in Washington state, he said.
“The devil will be in the details,” he said.
It’s too soon to tell if BP’s Whiting refinery would be affected, he said. It’s unlikely it would result in a loss of operations or jobs, he said. Part of their announcement appears to include increased transparency for methane leaks, he said.
Still, it is significant as the first major oil company “admitting it needs to rethink its operations,” Inskeep said.
BP’s call was welcomed by some.
“I think pretty much any efforts to reduce emissions is a welcome change,” said Carl Lisek, South Shore Clean Cities executive director.
His organization worked with BP in recent years on a $450,000 grant program called BP Whiting Refinery Cleaner Air through Diesel Emissions Reductions (BP CADER). It paid to install medidock stations at Lake County hospitals, which let ambulances to idle without fuel, putting cleaner diesel engines on Lake County Sheriff rescue boats. It also gave money to buy propane buses for the School City of East Chicago.
Others were more skeptical of the oil giant’s plans.
“It would be nice if they were serious. It’s a little hard to take them seriously,” said Bowden Quinn, director of the Hoosier Sierra Club.
“We went through this 20 years ago, it was just a publicity stunt,” he said, referring to BP’s 2000 “Beyond Petroleum” campaign.
“A decade later, they got out of solar, pretty much out of wind,” he said. “We are about making money off oil, and they went all in on tar sands (producing petcoke, once stored in huge piles in Southeast Chicago).”
In a presentation in London to climate scientists, investors and journalists, Looney acknowledged that targets and more specifics would follow. He compared the announcements, which come only two weeks into his tenure as CEO, as being like setting the destination in a GPS.
“We’re starting with a destination,” he said. “The details will come.
Other energy companies have expressed similar ambitions as public awareness of climate change - and the energy industry’s role in emitting CO2 - has grown. Total of France said they were integrating climate into their strategy in 2016; Royal Dutch Shell outlined a “net carbon footprint ambition to halve emissions by 2050 while Repsol of Spain also made a similar net zero pledge to that of BP, David Elmes, an energy expert at Warwick Business School.
Elmes said BP’s announcement was significant in that it required deep change to the company’s business strategy rather than just reducing emissions from its current operations.
“While there are technologies that could keep us using fossil fuels without releasing the emissions (carbon capture, use and storage), it means BP has set a 30-year clock ticking to change much of what they do, he said.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said BP’s plans will put pressure on other oil companies to follow suit. But he said they don’t go far enough if the world is going to meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
“The oil and gas industry can only survive the next few decades if they take ownership of the rapid transition to zero-emissions energy, Ward said. ”However, what is lacking from BP’s announcement is any indication of whether the company accepts that there will be a major reduction in the global demand for its hydrocarbon fuels.
BP said it plans to help customers reduce their emissions by cutting in half the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the fuels it sells by 2050. The company said it will increase investment in “low carbon businesses and put less money into oil and gas operations.
It will install monitoring equipment at all oil and gas processing plants by 2023 as it seeks to reduce the amount of methane the facilities release by 50%.
On a broader level, the company said it would work to promote policies that move society toward net-zero emissions. BP said it will stop “corporate reputation advertising and shift that spending toward promoting carbon reduction.