2023-07-25 19:02:06
The recent promotion of Patrick Pouyanné to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor has caused controversy in France. But it comes following a series of wild claims from oil and fossil gas giants. As millions of people suffocate in unbreathable temperatures.
For several days now — almost several weeks in places — our planet has literally been overheating. Blame it on anthropogenic global warming. One more proof that it is now urgent to limit our consumption of fossil fuels.
The big oil companies — and fossil gas companies — have made a lot of promises on this subject in recent years. BP, for example, aimed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by 2030. A few months ago, however, as climate change continued to take hold, this target was scaled back. The British company will be content to limit its emissions by something between 20 and 30%.
Reducing fossil fuels would save millions of lives
A decision that is completely in line with what the CEO of Shell recently supported. According to him, reducing the production of fossil fuels would be “dangerous and irresponsible”. So, so much the worse for the promise made by the Anglo-Dutch company to reduce its oil production by 20% by 2030. But, in order to pretend not to fail in its commitments, it sold some of its assets. Leaving it to other tankers to continue polluting in its place.
At the same time, Shell announced its decision to no longer increase its investments in renewable energies. Surprising all the same when the CEO of the Anglo-Dutch company underlined, the day declared as the hottest ever recorded on the planet, that before “Being able to move away from oil and fossil gas, we have to make sure that we have developed the energy systems of the future”. “We are not yet moving forward, collectively, at the pace necessary for this to happen”, he continued. From this point of view at least, he was clearly right.
ExxonMobil plans to double the amount of oil produced from US shale reserves in the next five years. And the American company has also just discreetly put an end to its investment in a project aimed at producing, thanks to algae, a fuel with low carbon emissions.
The big oil companies with one voice
The French TotalEnergies is not left out. In early July, Patrick Puoyanné explained that his company would continue to devote most of its time and money to fossil fuels. Citing the need for a “just transition”. Because’“today, our society needs oil and gas”. It was only a few days before he was promoted to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor…
“Our society needs oil and fossil gas”
Contrary to what the oil bigs increasingly want us to believe, no one expects demand for fossil fuels to fall overnight. But many scientific works show that it is quite possible to do without it in the years to come. And we have to do it if we want to save the climate as we know it. Because in our real life, it’s not going without fossil fuels that’s “dangerous and irresponsible”, it is on the contrary, the fact of continuing to emit greenhouse gases that is. The heat waves that our planet is currently experiencing are perhaps the best proof of this.
That’s why experts increasingly agree that, if they want to get things done, our world’s leaders should quickly stop believing that the oil and fossil gas bigwigs will voluntarily change their business models for the good of humanity. And imagine taxes and other political sanctions that would encourage them to finally put the planet on the right track.
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