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LONDON (Alliance News) - The chief executives of some of the world's largest oil and gas companies have banded together to "declare action on climate change" to try and encourage the UN Conference due to be held next month to reach an effective climate change agreement, BP PLC said Friday.
The chief executives from ten companies - which collectively provide almost a fifth of all oil and gas production and supply nearly 10% of the world?s energy - declared their collective support for an effective climate change agreement to be reached at next month's 21st session of the UN Conference of Parties to the UN Framework on Climate Change.
Alongside BP's Bob Dudley, BG Group PLC CEO Helge Lund and Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Ben van Beurden are among the ten individuals, which also include the chief executives of Italy's Eni, France's Total, Mexican state oil company Pemex, Spain's Repsol, Indian conglomerate Reliance Energy, Saudi Arabia's state-owned company Saudi Aramco and Norwegian firm Statoil.
Collectively, the companies are known as the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which said it recognised the general ambition to limit global average temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade and that the existing trend of the world's net global greenhouse gas emissions is not consistent with this ambition.
The Oil and Gas Initiative will fall to only nine members sometime in 2016 once Shell completes its GBP47.0 billion mega-merger with BG Group, the largest UK-to-UK acquisition ever, which is expected to be finalised in early 2016.
In the statement released by BP, the Initiative claimed the ten companies have reduced their global greenhouse gas emissions from their operations by around 20% over the last decade.
"Our shared ambition is for a 2 degree Celsius future. It is a challenge for the whole of society. We are committed to playing our part. Over the coming years we will collectively strengthen our actions and investments to contribute to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of the global energy mix. Our companies will collaborate in a number of areas, with the aim of going beyond the sum of our individual efforts," the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative said.
Together, the companies have published a report to advise the wider industry on how to collaborate and reduce their own emissions.
That report's key points suggested improving the efficiency of operations and working with manufacturers and consumers to improve the efficiency of road vehicles.
It also highlighted natural gas, a increasingly popular product for its intermediary environmental affects between extremely dirty commodities like coal and uber-clean renewable energy, as key to lowering emissions.
"Contributing to increasing the share of gas in the global energy mix, ensuring it results in significantly lower lifecycle emissions than other fossil fuels for power generation; eliminating 'routine' flaring and reducing methane emissions from their operations," were all highlighted as key to lowering emissions, the Initiative said.
It also wants companies to progress carbon capture and storage, which involves collecting excess gas which would usually be flared and storing it underground. It said carbon capture and storage would increase the share of renewables in the global energy mix.
The Oil and Gas Climate Change Initiative was established following discussions held during the January 2014 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting and was officially launched at the September 2014 UN Climate Summit.
BP shares were up 2.1% to 387.50 pence per share on Friday morning whilst BG shares were up 1% to 1,090.50p. Shell 'A' shares were up 2% to 1,814.50p and 'B' shares were up 1.9% to 1,838.12p.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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