Year after year the evidence that fossil fuel emissions are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise and causing all sorts of environmental problems just continues to accumulate. (And again I don’t care whether you call it global warming or climate change I just want something done about it!) By this time only someone who is either making a great deal of money off of petroleum and natural gas or else is a total fool can doubt that we have to end our reliance on fossil fuels and invest heavily in more sustainable energy sources.
Slowly, bit by bit the tide is turning, more and more people are becoming aware of the grave threat posed by the continued use of fossil fuels. At the same time the alternatives to fossil fuels are becoming more realistic, even attractive from a business point of view.
The cost of solar and wind generated electrical power is dropping dramatically. Electric cars have gone from being mere curiosities to a major part of the automobile market with every car manufacturer now boasting about their EVs, see my post of 3 March 2021. And power saving electric products, such as LED lights are gaining favour as consumers are now deliberately trying to reduce their carbon footprint, and save money.
At the same time political and legal pressure is building to make fighting climate change a major policy in many countries. Climate conscious Joe Biden’s defeat of global warming denier Donald Trump is just the most notable of a number of setbacks for politicians linked to the fossil fuel industry.
And lately courtrooms in several nations have proven to be even less friendly to oil companies. Recently a Dutch court at The Hague ordered Shell Oil Company to cut by 45% the emissions of greenhouse gases caused by its products before the year 2030. In years past oil and gas companies had argued in court that they were not responsible for the emissions their customers produced with their products. This argument, know in legal circles as ‘Scope 3’ is now being overturned in case after case because, as the Dutch court put it, climate change due to greenhouse gasses “has serious and irreversible consequences” which threaten the “right to life” of human beings.
Surely however the most unexpected change has come in the boardrooms of the gas and oil companies themselves. A recent resolution that was circulated amongst shareholders in Chevron Corporation calling for the company to drastically cut its own ‘scope 3’ managed to gain 61% support. While the resolution was not binding, and did not specify any definite amount of the cuts no company’s management can ignore 61% of their stockholders.
Perhaps the biggest shock of all however came in the recent board elections at Exxon-Mobile Corporation, the one company that has before now fought hardest against any environment regulation of the oil and gas industry. In the election an environmentally activist hedge fund called ‘Engine No.1’ won at least two, perhaps threes seats on the twelve member board.
Now don’t get the idea that the stockholder’s in Chevron and Exxon-Mobile have suddenly become tree-hugging environmentalists. The truth is that they can see that big oil’s days are numbered and if those companies are to remain profitable they are going to have to stop pumping oil out of the ground and invest in more sustainable energy sources. If you think about it this is a change that should have happened twenty or more years ago since the major petroleum producers were in the best position to develop alternative energy sources like solar and wind.
Alright, so let’s assume for the moment that the tide has turned, does that mean that we’ve won, that the burning of fossil fuel’s is going to stop and the problem of global warming will soon be solved. Well the battle certainly isn’t over yet. First of all there are still many in the oil industry who are determined to just keep making money whatever the consequences. And even if publicly traded corporations like Shell and Exxon-Mobile are finally convinced, or compelled to do the right thing what about Russia, which is heavily dependent on oil as a export to keep its economy running. And what about China, which is still dependent on coal burning for much of its energy.
And even if environmentalists have gained the advantage it may already be too late! After all everyone isn’t going to buy an electric car tomorrow. And even with a commitment from the oil companies to reduce their scope 3 emissions oil and even coal burning power plants are still going to be generating electricity for years to come.
But we may not have many years before the worst consequences of climate change come to pass. Back in 2015 in the Paris Climate Agreement the nations of the world promised to take action to prevent the Earth’s temperature from rising more than 1.5º Celsius above pre-industrial levels, that’s the year 1850. Since that time there has been little accomplished and in fact greenhouse gas emissions have continued to steadily climb.
Meanwhile scientists had calculated that the world was on course to reach and surpass that 1.5ºC level by the year 2030. Well, last year in 2020 the average temperature on this planet was 1.2º C above that in 1850 and the latest set of calculations has now given a 40% chance that we will reach that 1.5º C by 2025, just four years from now! So, is the news good or bad? I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Every day more and more people are getting involved in trying to protect our planet from our own worst impulses, but there is so much left to do with so little time left.