There is still a long way to go to squeeze coal out: BP

There are worrying signs that last year’s Covid-induced dip in carbon emissions will be short lived as the world economy recovers and lockdowns are lifted, says Bernard Looney Chief Executive Officer of BP in the recently published Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 published by the company.

The challenge, he said, is to achieve sustained, comparable year-on-year reductions in emissions without massive disruption to our livelihoods and our everyday lives.

While the fall in carbon emissions from energy use was striking, with emissions falling by over 6 percent in 2020, the largest decline since 1945 and unmatched in modern peacetime, the rate of decline in carbon emissions in 2020 is similar to what the world needs to average each year for the next 30 years to be on track to meet the aims of the Paris Agreement, he said.

Since the Paris Conference of Parties (COP21) in 2015 there has been a huge increase in countries’ ambitions to decarbonize.

Around 70 percent of the world’s carbon emissions are now covered by net zero targets and pledges. But this rising ambition has yet to be translated into a decisive reduction in emissions, he said.

The next big staging post for that challenge will occur later this year in Glasgow, Scotland which will host COP26 – arguably the most important UN climate change conference since the Paris meeting.

“I sincerely believe that companies like BP with net zero ambitions, coherent plans, and near, medium, and long-term aims – companies that are committed to ‘greening’ – have a hugely significant part to play in achieving the Paris goals. Yes, the world needs more low carbon companies. But maybe more than anything, it also needs existing energy companies to decarbonize and in so doing use their scale and expertise to help bring about the deep and complex rewiring and replumbing of the global energy system that the world wants and needs to see over the next 30 years,” he said.