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Kerry challenges the oil industry to demonstrate promised technological rescue to climate-devastating emissions

HO CHI MINH CITY –

Oil and gas producers talk of technological breakthroughs they say will soon allow the world to drill and burn fossil fuels without exacerbating global warming. US climate envoy John Kerry says the time has come for the industry to demonstrate that it can make this technology a reality – at a large scale, affordably and quickly – to prevent prevent climate catastrophe.

And Kerry says he has “serious questions” about whether it’s possible.

Kerry’s comments came in an interview with the Associated Press on one of the most important topics in the fight to slow global warming: the argument by oil and gas producers that they will soon. has the technology to extract the climate-damaging gases that produce fossils. fueling the main culprit of climate change, allowing companies to continue pumping crude oil and natural gas without worry.

The ideal solution, Kerry said, is a rapid global transition to renewable energy, but states and oil companies have the right to claim to rescue their technology.

“If you can reduce emissions, embrace it,” Kerry said last week at the office of his climate group at the State Department. “But we don’t have that scale yet. And we can’t sit here and just pretend that we automatically have something that we don’t have today. Because we might not. It might not. work.”

Globally, the issue matters because oil and gas companies point to hope for a technology that can one day wipe out much of the climate-destroying carbon to stem public and government pressure on with the world moving faster from fossil fuels to solar, wind and other clean energy.

“What they’re expecting is they’ll be able to do emissions capture,” Kerry said of the oil companies. He ticks off the stages of activity that will be involved.

“If you can do those things, you can make it economically competitive,” he said, “I have some serious questions about whether it’s price competitive.”

Especially since 2015, when the United States and nearly 200 other governments pledged to cut emissions to avoid the most dire scenarios of global warming, oil producers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars. for publicity campaigns presenting themselves as climate-friendly. Industry advertisements and social media campaigns often suggest that carbon filtration technology has been deployed, extracting climate-damaging gases from oil and gas facilities’ around the world.

“CO2 capture and transport technologies have operated safely globally and in the US for many years,” says oil giant BP’s website.

“Technologies that capture CO2 emissions at source or directly from the air,” said Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco, describing the carbon that is then safely stored underground or turned into “useful products”.

In fact, the technology to capture a major climate-damaging gas, methane, from oil and gas operations already exists and is awaiting investment for large-scale deployment. But the technology to capture the biggest climate agent, carbon dioxide, is still limited in scale and expensive, and often energy-intensive in its own right.

The International Energy Agency, several national governments around the globe, and many climate scientists and advocates are adamant that although carbon capture technology will play a role, production oil and gas production must be phased out.

“Practical experience shows that commercial-scale carbon capture projects have fallen far short of requirements,” said David Schlissel of the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis research group.

“I just think it’s stupid to think we can keep pumping CO2, methane into the atmosphere, and at some point we’ll be able to get them,” Schlissel said.

A spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute trade group declined to comment. An industry research group in 2019 called for massive government funding to capture a quarter of current greenhouse gases within 15 years.

– API supports federal policies to achieve the “large scale phase” of CCUS commercial implementation,

The battle – rapid production cuts versus tech rescues – promises to be intense this year.

Annual UN-funded climate talks aimed at helping countries stay on track to meet emissions-cutting commitments are being held this year in the United Arab Emirates.

The talks will be chaired by Sultan al-Jaber, chief executive officer of Emirates’ state oil company. Like the United States and several others, the Gulf nation is expanding drilling even as it advocates for climate causes.

Entering the climate talks in November, al-Jaber is calling for a gradual phase-out of `’fossil fuel emissions’, making it unclear whether he means increasing technology or being ready to cut back. Quantity.

At the 2021 UN climate talks in Scotland, countries agreed for the first time to gradually reduce coal use globally. The following year’s negotiations in Egypt saw a big push towards a pledge to phase out oil and gas, but it failed.

While non-binding, any agreement in this year’s climate talks that the world should begin phasing out oil and gas production would be a priority. It will cause governments and industry to comply.

Kerry rejected the idea of ​​setting a deadline to stop oil and gas production. That could happen quickly or slowly, he said, depending in part on how quickly the world transitions to electric vehicles and the grid using renewable fuels.

Instead, he said, this year’s climate talks “most likely” will result in an international agreement to phase out the “undiluted” use of oil and natural gas. and the gas does not capture carbon emissions. This could disappoint those calling for a quick cut in oil and gas production.

Kerry said the deadline to follow up is 2030. By then, the UN’s top climate panel says, the world will need to cut climate-damaging emissions by nearly half to avert scenarios. more devastating version of global warming.

“We cannot let our desires or our hopes dictate the common sense here,” Kerry said. “If we know that we can get the job done by deploying more renewable energy and current technology, then we should.”



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