The world’s largest oil and gas companies are far from achieving the Paris climate protection goals. They are all focusing on new projects in the field of fossil energy.
According to a study, none of the world’s 25 largest oil and gas companies are on track when it comes to climate protection. “Our findings show that the industry is falling far short of what it needs to do to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement,” think tank Carbon Tracker said in a report published today.
Carbon Tracker examined companies’ strategies for investments in renewable energy, new projects in the fossil fuel sector, production plans, CO2 emissions targets and the direction of their executive compensation policies and awarded grades from A to H. The best grade awarded – a D – went to the British company BP because of “its plan to reduce its production by 2030”. However, BP had recently noticeably weakened this target again: from a reduction of 40 percent to 25 percent by 2030.
US company is at the bottom
Five other European companies (Equinor, Repsol, Eni, Shell and TotalEnergies) received a grade of E from Carbon Tracker. The US company Chesapeake also received this grade and thus performed better than the other US companies. For example, ExxonMobil from the USA is at the end of the scale with a grade of G, as is the US company Conoco Phillips. She received the worst grade, H.
The Saudi Arabian group Saudi Aramco and Brazil’s Petrobras also only received a grade of G. The reason for the consistently poor rating: All large companies continue to focus on new projects in the field of fossil fuels.
Energy transition “failed”?
This is despite the fact that at the UN climate conference COP28 in December, almost 200 countries agreed to call for a shift away from fossil fuels and a tripling of renewable energy capacity this decade. The oil and gas industry is still largely sticking to its expansion plans.
Saudi Aramco boss Amin Nasser described the energy transition as “failed” this week. The world should “abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them appropriately to reflect realistic demand assumptions.”