Nearly 40% of the oil, gas, and coal now under development around the world will have to stay in the ground to give humanity a 50-50 chance of holding global warming to 1.5°C, a study team led by Oil Change International concludes in a paper published yesterday in the journal Environmental Research Letters. “Going beyond recent warnings by the International Energy Agency, our results suggest that staying below 1.5°C may require governments and companies not only to cease licencing and development of new fields and mines, but also to prematurely decommission a significant portion of those already developed,” the paper states. Burning all of those reserves would emit about 936 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the paper concludes—47% of it from coal, 35% from oil, and 18% from gas—pushing far beyond an available carbon budget of about 580 gigatonnes as of 2018.
The Energy Mix 17th May 2022 read more »
Elon Musk has taken to the social media platform he is maybe or maybe not buying to rail against the injustice of his company Tesla, which is doing more than most to push the combustion engine to extinction, being ejected from an ethical investing index. He further complained that Exxon, the US energy giant, is included. The billionaire entrepreneur tweeted that ESG investment, which screens stocks based on environmental, social and governance criteria, is “a scam”, which has been “weaponised by phony social justice warriors”. He’s right – although maybe for the wrong reason. Energy prices have soared in recent months. Analysts are predicting the cost of oil and gas will remain high for years as the world attempts to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels. Oil majors are churning out profits and have, in the infamous words of BP chief executive Bernard Looney, become “cash machines”. You would therefore reasonably expect the share prices of these companies to be going through the roof. They’re not. BP’s stock is up about 23pc so far this year but it is still roughly 27pc below its pre-pandemic highs. Shell is up about 41pc for the year to date (it didn’t take as big a hit as its rival to get out of Russia) but shares are still about 12pc off where they were trading before Covid started sweeping around the globe.
Telegraph 19th May 2022 read more »