An employee looks out over the illuminated petroleum cracking complex at the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez oil refinery in Russia.
Bloomberg / Contributor
The CEOs of some of the world’s leading energy companies have defended their position in the energy mix after the COP26 climate summit focused attention on the future of the industry.
Energy industry leaders and insiders were plentiful at COP26 in Glasgow as government officials, corporates and activists clashed over emission-reduction targets, pledges and deals to keep global temperature rises to a minimum at the COP26 climate summit.
Speaking on a panel at the ADIPEC energy forum in Abu Dhabi hosted by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble, the CEOs of BP, Lukoil, Occidental and Eni insisted they were diversifying their energy offering and reducing carbon emissions while also maintaining supplies of hydrocarbons that are still heavily relied upon.
“We just have to get the opportunity to explain what we’re doing and to make the case that it’s not about fossil fuels. It’s about the emissions,” Vicki Hollub, president and chief executive of U.S. energy company Occidental, said on Monday.
“And as long as we can to deal with the emissions and help others that use the products deal with the emissions too, then we have the right to be here. We have the right to provide the quality of life that oil and gas has provided … for the current rich countries, and we need to allow the developing countries the same right to become wealthier through the development of their natural resources,” she added.
Hollub added that Occidental was “committed to do the right thing,” and that “to be an energy or oil and gas company that survives into the future” the company had a social responsibility to reduce and negate its emissions, as well as to help customers do so as well.
After the COP26 summit concluded at the weekend, almost 200 countries signed up to pledges (with various timeframes) to cut methane emissions, end deforestation, curb the use of fossil fuels and their subsidies, offer more financial to poorer countries and “phase down” the use of coal.
The summit was seen as humanity’s last and best chance to keep the goal alive of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels; many say the summit failed to achieve that.
Read more: ‘Still on the road to hell’: Global media reacts to COP26 climate deal
Uncomfortable truths
Big Oil companies have long been in the firing line from climate activists so for CEOs like BP’s Bernard Looney, promoting the company’s role in the industry’s transition to greener energy has become a prominent part of his job.
There are questions about this green transition, however, as the world’s dependency on fossil fuels is likely to get even worse in the coming decades. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said it expects global carbon dioxide emissions from energy-related sources to continue to grow in the coming decades.
Like other industry leaders, Looney…
Read More: Oil and gas giants say they’re active in energy transition already