Oil Major tried to convert the UK administration to present natural gaseous state as a “ necessary compromise ” to make the goals of the Paris Agreement at all-important international climate talks after this year , new documents show .
The documents werefirst reported by Unearthed , Greenpeace UK ’s investigative branch . Last week , Channel 4 releasedbombshell footageobtained by the group during an cloak-and-dagger investigation of a lobbyist for Exxon make all sorts of wild claims about how the fellowship cozies up to politicians in Washington , DC . Here , Unearthed is follow up those tape with a prevue of how the industry is attempt to swing folks abroad ahead of the COP26 climate talks , which are being held in Glasgow and hosted by the UK in November .
Conor Burns , then a trade minister for the UK , traveled to Texas in February 2020 , where he met with representatives of BP , Shell , Chevron , Exxon , and Equinor for dinner to peach about the land ’s leadership role in the upcoming COP26 meetings . grant to notes from that dinner obtain by Unearthed via the UK ’s exemption of information jurisprudence , the fossil oil representative pressured Burns to position natural gas as a “ via media ” at the Glasgow talks .
Photo: Tony Gutierrez (AP)
“ There needs to be greater acknowledgment of the office of gas pedal in transition , it is cleaner than ember and fundamental to the Texas saving , ” the notes interpret . “ Moving the US and the developing cosmos from coal to natural gas is a necessary via media , while they make inroads in affordability of genuinely clean energy . ”
call gas “ cleaner than ember ” is not exactly a high compliment give that ember is one of the most carbon copy - intensive mannikin of vigor on Earth . Positioning gas as a “ necessary via media ” handily does n’t take into write up how build new gas infrastructure will shut up the U.S. and other countries into fossil fuel use for decades , well past the day of the month when we will need to be not using that stuff anymore . Nor does it describe for the fact that the costs of renewables are quickly fall , and are now cheaper thanbuilding young gas facilitiesin norm . Oh , and gas is also amajor sourceof methane emission , a greenhouse gas that ’s 80 sentence more potent than carbon paper dioxide . It ’s just the stuff of compromise when there are punk , carbon - loose forms of energy multiplication out there . ( possibly the fact that all these companies have enormous investments in natural flatulency fields in Texas thatdwarf many of their current investments in solar and windcould have something to do with this line of thought . Just a surmisal . )
The note of hand from the dinner party were draft into an official memorandum for the UK government by Richard Hyde , who is base in Houston and represents the UK as Consul General for Texas , Oklahoma , Arkansas , Louisiana , and New Mexico . Hyde ’s notes read like a page torn out ofBig Oil ’s playbookincreasingly used toconvince the worldthat they ’re all aboard fighting climate modification — if they can only just keep bring forth fossil fuels for us to use , that is .
“ These fellowship told you they want to work out with the UK , including during our leading of COP26 , ” Hyde wrote . “ They need livelihood from governments like ours so they can be get word as a full of life part of the solution to succeeding Energy Department planning . They need transition without annihilate our economies or stunting the growth of emerging thriftiness . The public need to be given naturalistic expectations on the transition process ; energy project have prospicient lead in times . … It is too easy to demonize the diligence , but this will not facilitate correct the job ; though all [ the fossil oil companies present at the dinner party ] admitted they had to be better at telling their story . ”
In statements made toChannel 4 , which reported on the Unearthed investigation , instance from all the oil Major at the dinner support that they corroborate the Paris Agreement ’s targets ( even though receive those object meansstopping all oil and gaseous state geographic expedition by next year , something that none of those companies have indicate they will do ) . A spokesperson for the UK government severalize Channel 4 , meanwhile , that the dinner party was a “ routine engagement with the vigour industriousness ” that also discourse the petroleum majors ’ transition to renewable energy , “ not lobbied . ”
EnergyEnergy industryExxonShell
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