The fossil gas business has an extended historical past of malfeasance however their misapplication of carbon seize could also be their most audacious disinformation ploy up to now. As defined in an Vitality Transitions Fee report, carbon know-how is being ‘co-opted’ by fossil-fuel firms to allow them to preserve extracting oil and fuel.
Whereas carbon seize is a crucial a part of a suite of local weather options, petrostates, and the hydrocarbon business are asking the know-how to do the not possible. In accordance with a latest Worldwide Vitality Company (IEA) report, emissions have to fall by 60 p.c within the coming years, and to do that we’d like a fast and substantial change to the power sector which is accountable for two-thirds of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), most of that are attributable to fossil fuels. In accordance with the report, to succeed in internet zero emissions by 2050, oil and fuel use should decline by 75 p.c.
The carbon seize gambit
Carbon removing is being positioned as a justification to extract extra hydrocarbons. Petrostates are banking on the know-how to fulfill their 2050 carbon neutrality targets, that is significantly true for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the host nation for the 2023 local weather convention referred to as COP 28.
Early this 12 months, Local weather Change Information quoted a speech that the UAE’s setting minister Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri delivered on the Munich Safety Convention. Almheiri made it clear that the UAE has no intention of decreasing manufacturing, as a substitute, he’s calling for the decarbonization of oil and fuel. Ahmed Al Jaber, an oil business CEO and the COP 28 president, shares the dangerously misguided view that carbon removing applied sciences justify growing manufacturing.
As Ben Rubin, Govt Director of the Carbon Enterprise Council mentioned: “Carbon Removing is cemented as an important pillar of local weather motion.” Whereas we have to massively scale carbon seize, the IPCC signifies that these technological options are required as well as to phasing out hydrocarbons. So, whereas carbon seize is a vital a part of our efforts to scale back emissions, it isn’t a alternative for phasing out fossil fuels.
The oil business’s assist for carbon seize is self-serving. They’re selling carbon applied sciences as a local weather answer to refurbish their picture in order that they’ll retain their social license to function.
Malpractice and greed
To contextualize the fossil gas business’s cynical use of carbon seize, we have to perceive the impacts hydrocarbons have on individuals and the planet. The burning of oil, fuel, and coal kills tens of millions yearly and the emissions they generate are the main reason for local weather change, which if left unchecked will augur the collapse of civilization.
The fossil gas business raked in a record-breaking $4 trillion in 2022 and 2023 is on observe to earn them much more. A latest examine by Local weather Analytics discovered that the world’s 12 largest oil firms are reaping huge earnings whereas inflicting immense planetary hurt. They made $21 trillion in earnings from their operations between 1985 and 2018 and they’re accountable for $15 trillion in local weather damages. Worse nonetheless, these prices are rising. Given our present trajectory, these damages will attain $1.7 trillion per 12 months in 2025 and 30 trillion per 12 months in 2075. The report additionally chronicles the fossil gas majors’ lies and disinformation, in addition to their toll on susceptible communities and creating nations.
Methane flaring deception
The fossil gas business’s observe report on methane illustrates its hypocrisy and duplicity. The business is accountable for greater than 60 p.c of methane emissions which lure 87 instances extra warmth than carbon. The business has pledged to scale back flaring however these commitments don’t comport with their motion.
Many oil majors don’t report methane and after they do it’s generally underreported. The UAE didn’t report its methane emissions for greater than a decade, however impartial reviews point out that the nation has fallen far wanting its promise to zero out routine methane flaring. In accordance with a satellite knowledge report ready for the Guardian by the Centre for Analysis on Vitality and Clear Air (Crea), between 2018 and 2023, ADNOC, the UAE’s state-owned oil and fuel firm, launched round 2.5 million tons of CO2 into the ambiance attributable to flaring. That is greater than the UAE’s whole carbon seize capability which can be 2.3 million tons as soon as it finishes constructing out deliberate carbon removing infrastructure.
The EOR and CCU scams
Massive Oil performed a decisive function in pioneering carbon removal applied sciences via its investments in each carbon seize and utilization (CCU) and carbon seize utilization and sequestration (CCUS). CCU makes gas from captured carbon whereas CCUS is utilized in enhanced oil restoration (EOR) which injects captured carbon into present wells to extend the quantity of oil or fuel that may be extracted.
In accordance with an evaluation by Michael Barnard, the chief strategist at TFIE Methods, 74 p.c of enormous CCS amenities (14 of 19) have used captured carbon for EOR. Tyndall Centre analysis signifies that 81 p.c of carbon captured is used for EOR. Utilizing captured carbon for EOR greater than doubles the quantity of oil or fuel that may be extricated from an extraction web site. CCU and EOR are touted as local weather options, however these are examples of greenwashing designed to create the misunderstanding of fresh gas.
Though oil produced from EOR sequesters small portions of carbon and barely reduces the CO2 emissions per barrel of oil, these numbers are dwarfed by the quantity of GHGs generated from elevated manufacturing. EOR emits CO2 within the extraction course of, however the bulk of emissions come from the burning of gas in energy technology, heating, and autos. Barnard’s evaluation reveals that artificial fuels constituted of captured carbon have larger carbon emissions and are rather more costly than the alternate options.
Occidental needs to scale a type of carbon seize referred to as direct air seize (DAC). They plan to construct 100 crops and use the captured carbon to make extra gas. To this finish, Occidental bought DAC agency Carbon Engineering. As Barnard defined in a Clear Technica article, pumping extra oil has at all times been Carbon Engineering’s recreation plan. EOR stays the one largest marketplace for CO2 at this time. Occidental Petroleum CEO, Vicki Hollub defined she needs to make use of DAC to proceed extracting fossil fuels for one more ‘80 years’.
The UAE and different petrostates are speaking rather a lot about carbon seize, what they don’t seem to be saying is that they intend to make use of the captured carbon to extend manufacturing. As reported by Al-Monitor, a 2021 examine by the UAE’s Worldwide Renewable Vitality Company, concluded that whereas CCUS has a job to play, it shouldn’t be used as a software to justify extracting oil fuel, and coal. Local weather motion is incompatible with ramping up fossil fuels, if we use captured carbon to extract extra hydrocarbons it can push us previous upper-temperature warming thresholds (1.5-2C above preindustrial norms).
The COP course of and fossil gas affect
Carbon seize has turn into more and more outstanding on the UN’s annual Convention of the Events (COP) local weather conferences in the previous few years. At COP 26, Carbon Dioxide Removing (CDR) introduced its mission and at COP 27, CDR unveiled the Launchpad dash mission. There have been dozens of carbon removing occasions at COP 27 together with the formal launch of the 2030 Breakthroughs which incorporates carbon removals.
Whereas COP 27 produced a historic settlement on Loss and Harm, delegates couldn’t agree on a transparent definition of carbon removing, so convention events had been invited to submit their views on Article VI of the Paris Settlement. Alongside renewables and local weather finance, carbon removing has been moved to the highest of the COP 28 agenda.
The fossil gas business is utilizing its affect over the COP course of to give attention to carbon seize and transfer away from science-based efforts to part out hydrocarbons. At COP 27 petrostates derailed an try by greater than 80 nations to agree on a phase-down of oil and fuel. The crowning achievement of the fossil gas business’s malfeasance is the brazen hijacking of COP 28. They’ve coopted the narrative with a craven misapplication of carbon seize to justify the unjustifiable.
Most insiders say It’s exceedingly unlikely we’ll see a phase-down of oil and fuel at COP 28, not to mention planning for a phase-out. As described by Jean Su, from the Heart for Organic Range, the fossil gas business has “outsized affect” including, “the (COP) course of is damaged.”
The COP 28 decarbonization ruse
COP 28 is on the middle of a multipronged marketing campaign to change the narrative from phasing out fossil fuels, to phasing out fossil gas emissions. The hosts of COP 28 declare they need to decarbonize hydrocarbons by zeroing out emissions with carbon seize. The very fact is they’re unable to decarbonize the extraction and refining of oil and fuel, not to mention seize all of the emissions that emanate from burning fossil fuels. The oil majors know that they’re asking the not possible of carbon applied sciences, however they’re utilizing it to create a false pretext to justify their existence.
Decarbonizing the oil and fuel business is simply the newest ruse. Though Al Jaber needs us to consider that oil firms are dependable companions, many years of lies and corruption make it not possible for pondering individuals to belief them. The fossil gas business has identified that its core enterprise exercise is a risk to planetary well being for many years, but it unleashed wave after wave of subtle disinformation campaigns to disclaim local weather change or delay local weather motion.
There isn’t a motive to belief the UAE because the host nation for COP 28, their deliberate enlargement of hydrocarbon extraction is in violation of the United Nations Framework Conference on Local weather Change (UNFCCC) Article 2, and their failure to report methane flaring violates Article 4. However their largest crime will be the misapplication of carbon seize as a part of a disinformation marketing campaign designed to justify elevated manufacturing.
The fossil gas business has confirmed to be very adept at countering info and deceiving the general public. Now they’re utilizing carbon seize to weave one more internet of lies. Even when they managed to put in CCS all through the business, it will solely seize a small share of whole emissions generated by fossil fuels. It’s the downstream use of oil, fuel, and coal that contributes the majority of emissions (scope 3). Their try to advertise ‘clear gas’ is an excessive instance of greenwashing. As UN Secretary-Normal António Guterres mentioned in June, this isn’t an answer, this solely makes them “extra environment friendly planet-wreckers.”
Self-induced vilification
Worry is a key part of the fossil gas business’s decades-long disinformation technique which is designed to promote a story that prolongs the lifetime of oil and fuel. They might have us consider that ending fossil gas manufacturing will spark a world disaster, whereas economists have countered that we are able to construction a phasedown that minimizes opposed impacts. A number of cost-benefit analyses verify that failure to curtail fossil fuels will augur a far better financial disaster than power provide shortfalls.
The hydrocarbon business claims to be working to make sure power safety they usually argue we must always not part out fossil fuels till we now have a dependable and inexpensive various. Nevertheless, attributable to their decades-long ways of denial and delay, we at the moment are at a degree the place the mathematics and the physics of radiative forcing of atmospheric carbon precludes a protracted phase-out.
Regardless of clear science-based calls to finish our reliance on fossil fuels, the business is shifting in the wrong way. The IEA’s Internet Zero by 2050 roadmap says we have to pace up the power transition not sluggish it down. The IEA additionally referred to as out the oil and fuel business for its failure to deal with emissions and informed them to “hasten the transition to wash power relatively than impeding it.”
Simply earlier than COP 28 convened on November thirtieth, OPEC Secretary Normal Haitham Al Ghais accused the IEA of vilifying the fossil gas business, however when you think about their lengthy historical past of malfeasance, it’s arduous to not conclude that they introduced this on themselves.
What the hydrocarbon business has carried out and continues to do is unconscionable. As defined within the Manufacturing Hole Report, we can’t afford to maintain extracting hydrocarbons on the present price not to mention ramp up manufacturing. As acknowledged within the report: “Continued manufacturing and use of coal, oil, and fuel usually are not suitable with a secure and livable future. Attaining net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 requires governments to decide to, plan for, and implement international reductions within the manufacturing of all fossil fuels.”
Time for accountability
Skirting accountability has been Massive Oil’s technique for many years and each figuratively and actually, individuals and our planet are paying the value. The fossil gas business already receives huge authorities subsidies and tax breaks, now Al Jaber and the oil majors need taxpayers to foot the invoice to roll out carbon seize. They’re lobbying governments to “incentivize non-public funding on an industrial scale.” However because the CCS senior coverage adviser at local weather think-tank E3G, Domien Vangenechten defined: “In the end, prices must be borne by polluters.”
The COP 28 decarbonization ruse is without doubt one of the most duplicitous subterfuge campaigns within the fossil gas business’s lengthy historical past of malfeasance. Massive Oil’s carbon seize evangelism is profoundly cynical. They invented carbon seize to extract extra hydrocarbons, and now they’re utilizing it to feign assist for local weather motion and as a pretext to justify extra extraction. Will increase in fossil gas manufacturing will drive up emissions way over any potential reductions from carbon seize. As acknowledged by the IPCC AR6, “CDR can’t substitute for quick and deep emissions discount”.
On November 20th, Guterres succinctly acknowledged what must be carried out when he mentioned, “We’d like a transparent and credible dedication to part out fossil fuels on a timeframe that aligns with the 1.5-degree restrict.” Carbon seize is a harmful distraction. As reported by the Guardian, Noronha Grant from International Witness mentioned: “Sultan Al Jaber’s Cop is shaping as much as be the Cop of false options, inundated by fossil gas lobbyists pushing empty guarantees.”
Massive Oil’s observe report decisively proves it won’t voluntarily relinquish its pursuits or change its enterprise mannequin. The decarbonization of oil is one more promise that’s destined to be damaged. The COP 28 carbon seize technique is meant to purchase time we don’t have to allow them to preserve making the most of soiled power. It’s not too late to reduce the impacts of local weather change, however it will likely be if we fall prey to the fossil gas business’s sinister ploy.
Associated
* Aramco, Gazprom, Nationwide Iranian Oil Co, ExxonMobil, Pemex, Shell, BP, Chevron, PetroChina, Abu Dhabi NOC, Petroleos de Venezuela and Kuwait Petroleum Corp.
