2023-07-02 04:00:14
During a climate demonstration in London on June 27, 2023. HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP
History may forget that brief moment when those most responsible for the climate disaster pretended to be part of the solution. After making commitments to reduce their responsibility for global warming, the European oil giants – in particular BP, Shell and TotalEnergies – are in the process of carrying out a discreet but serious U-turn, betting on fossil fuels, instead of disregard for scientific consensus.
In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic brings the world to a standstill, oil prices plummet. Quickly, the oil majors in Europe committed to take a turn towards carbon neutrality. “The world’s carbon budget is running out fast; we need a quick transition to neutrality”alarmed Bernard Looney, then just appointed boss of BP and whose plan is, a rare thing, welcomed by part of the British climate movement.
“The question of the sustainability of oil companies is raised”even explains to Monde Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of Total, since renamed “TotalEnergies”. The Anglo-Dutch Shell or the Italian ENI promise to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and undertake to invest massively in renewable energies. On the other hand, their American competitors Exxon and Chevron take the opposite position, that of ignoring the climate challenge and devoting the bulk of their investments to oil and gas.
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Three years later, what remains of these commitments? Shell’s new boss, Wael Sawan, announced in mid-June that the company did not intend to meet its climate targets. It has even taken a 180 degree turn by planning to compete with the American giant Exxon, whose newfound profitability is held up as a model by traders in the sector. He thus follows BP, which gave up, in February, on massively reducing its carbon emissions by 2050. The boss of TotalEnergies repeats without batting an eyelid that the company – like its two competitors – will continue to invest in new wells of oil at least until 2030. As for ENI, it has just acquired the producer Neptune Energy to boost its oil and gas production – one of the largest takeovers in the sector in Europe, valued at 4.5 billion euros.
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A turnaround that did not escape some actors, who hoped for serious efforts. In the United Kingdom, the Anglican Church has thus decided to withdraw from the capital of BP and Shell, considering that the groups “were way off” to respect the trajectory provided for by the Paris climate agreement.
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