Fossil fuel companies know how to stop global warming. Why don't they?

The fossil fuel industry knows how to stop global warming, but they're waiting for someone else to pay, says climate science scholar Myles Allen. Instead of a total ban on carbon-emitting fuels, Allen puts forth a bold plan for oil and gas companies to progressively decarbonize themselves and sequester CO2 deep in the earth, with the aim of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and creating a carbon dioxide disposal industry that works for everyone.

So here's a thought.

The fossil fuel industry
knows how to stop causing global warming,

but they're waiting
for somebody else to pay,

and no one is calling them out on it.

I was one of the authors
of the 2018 IPCC report

on 1.5 degrees Celsius.

And after the report was published,

I gave a lot of talks, including one
to a meeting of young engineers

of one of the world's major
oil and gas companies.

And at the end of the talk,
I got the inevitable question,

"Do you personally believe
there's any chance

of us limiting global
warming to 1.5 degrees?"

IPCC reports are not really
about personal opinions,

so I turned the question around and said,

"Well, if you had to fully
decarbonize your product,

that is, dispose safely and permanently
of one ton of carbon dioxide

for every ton generated
by the oil and gas you sell,

by 2050, which is what it would take,

would you be able to do so?"

"Would the same rules
apply to everybody?" somebody asked,

meaning, of course, their competition.

I said, "OK, yeah, maybe they would."

Now, the management
just looked at their shoes;

they didn't want to answer the question.

But the young engineers
just shrugged and said,

"Yes, of course we would,
like it's even a question."

So I want to talk to you

about what those young
engineers know how to do:

decarbonize fossil fuels.

Not decarbonize the economy,

or even decarbonize their own company,

but decarbonize the fuels themselves,

and this matters

because it turns out to be essential
to stopping global warming.

At a global level, climate change
turns out to be surprisingly simple:

To stop global warming

we need to stop dumping carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere.

And since about 85 percent
of the carbon dioxide we currently emit

comes from fossil fuels and industry,

we need to stop fossil fuels
from causing further global warming.

So how do we do that?

Well, it turns out
there's really only two options.

The first option is,
in effect, to ban fossil fuels.

That's what "absolute zero" means.

No one allowed to extract,
sell, or use fossil fuels

anywhere in the world
on pain of a massive fine.

If that sounds unlikely,
it's because it is.

And even if a global ban were possible,

do you or I in wealthy countries in 2020

have any right to tell the citizens

of poor and emerging
economies in the 2060s

not to touch their fossil fuels?

Some people argue
that if we work hard enough

we can drive down the cost
of renewable energy so far

that we won't need to ban fossil fuels,

the people will stop using them
of their own accord.

This kind of thinking
is dangerously optimistic.

For one thing, renewable energy costs
might not go down as fast as they hope.

I mean, remember,

nuclear energy was meant to be
too cheap to meter in the 1970s,

but even more importantly,

we've no idea how low
fossil fuel prices might fall

in response to that competition.

There are so many uses of fossil carbon,

from aviation fuel to cement production,

it's not enough for carbon-free
alternatives to outcompete the big ones,

to stop fossil fuels
from causing further global warming,

carbon-free alternatives
would need to outcompete them all.

So the only real alternative to stop
fossil fuels causing global warming

is to decarbonize them.

I know that sounds odd,

decarbonize fossil fuels.

What it means is,

one ton of carbon dioxide has to be safely
and permanently disposed of

for every ton generated
by the continued use of fossil fuels.

Now, consumers can't do this,

so the responsibility
has to lie with the companies

that are producing and selling
the fossil fuels themselves.

Their engineers know how to do it.

In fact, they've known for decades.

The simplest option is to capture
the carbon dioxide as it's generated

from the chimney of a power station,
or blast furnace, or refinery.

You purify it, compress it,
and re-inject it back underground.

If you inject it deep enough
and into the right rock formations,

it stays there, just like
the hydrocarbons it came from.

To stop further global warming,

permanent storage has to mean
tens of thousands of years at least,

which is why trying to mop up
our fossil carbon emissions

by planting trees can help,

but it can only be a temporary stopgap.

For some applications
like aviation fuel, for example,

we can't capture
the carbon dioxide at source,

so we have to recapture it,
take it back out of the atmosphere.

That can be done;
there's companies already doing it,

but it's more expensive.

And this points to the single
most important reason

why recapturing and safe disposal
of carbon dioxide

is not already standard practice:

cost.

It's infinitely cheaper just to dump
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

than it is to capture it
and dispose of it safely back underground.

But the good news is,

we don't need to dispose of 100 percent

of the carbon dioxide we generate
from burning fossil fuels right away.

Economists talk about
cost-effective pathways,

by which they mean
ways of achieving a result

without unfairly dumping
too much of the cost

onto the next generation.

And a cost-effective pathway,

which gets us to
decarbonizing fossil fuels,

100 percent carbon capture
and storage by 2050,

which is what net-zero means,

takes us through 10 percent
carbon capture in 2030,

50 percent in 2040,

100 percent in 2050.

To put that in context,

we are currently capturing
and storing less than 0.1 percent.

So don't get me wrong,

decarbonizing fossil fuels
is not going to be easy.

It's going to mean building
a carbon dioxide disposal industry

comparable in size
to today's oil and gas industry.

The only entities in the world

that have the engineering capability

and the deep pockets to do this

are the companies that produce
the fossil fuels themselves.

We can all help by slowing
down our use of fossil carbon

to buy them time to decarbonize it,

but they still have to get on with it.

Now, adding the cost
of carbon dioxide disposal

will make fossil fuel-based
products more expensive,

and a 10 percent storage requirement
by 2030, for example,

might add a few pence
to the cost of a liter of petrol.

But, unlike a tax,

that money is clearly being spent
on solving the problem,

and of course, consumers will respond,

perhaps by switching
to electric cars, for example,

but they won't need to be told to do so.

And crucially, if developing countries
agreed to use fossil fuels

that have been progressively
decarbonized in this way,

then they never need accept limits
on the absolute amount that they consume,

which they fear
might constrain their growth.

Over the past couple of years,

more and more people have been talking

about the importance
of carbon dioxide disposal.

But they're still talking about it

as if it's to be paid for
by philanthropy or tax breaks.

But why should foundations
or the taxpayer pay to clean up

after a still-profitable industry?

No. We can decarbonize fossil fuels.

And if we do decarbonize fossil fuels,

as well as getting things like
deforestation under control,

we will stop global warming.

And if we don't, we won't.

It's as simple as that.

But it's going to take a movement
to make this happen.

So how can you help?

Well, it depends on who you are.

If you work or invest
in the fossil fuel industry,

don't walk away from the problem
by selling off your fossil fuel assets

to someone else
who cares less than you do.

You own this problem.

You need to fix it.

Decarbonizing your portfolio
helps no one but your conscience.

You must decarbonize your product.

If you're a politician or a civil servant,

you need to look at your favorite
climate policy and ask:

How is it helping
to decarbonize fossil fuels?

How is it helping to increase the fraction

of carbon dioxide
we generate from fossil fuels

that is safely and
permanently disposed of?

If it isn't, then it may be
helping to slow global warming,

which is useful,

but unless you believe in that ban,
it isn't going to stop it.

Finally, if you're an environmentalist,

you probably find the idea
of the fossil fuel industry itself

playing such a central role in solving
the climate change problem disturbing.

"Won't those carbon
dioxide reservoirs leak?"

you'll worry,

"Or won't some in the industry cheat?"

Over the coming decades,
there probably will be leaks,

and there may be cheats,

but those leaks and those cheats

will make decarbonizing
fossil fuels harder,

they don't make it optional.

Global warming won't wait
for the fossil fuel industry to die.

And just calling for it to die

is letting it off the hook
from solving its own problem.

In these divided times,
we need to look for help

and maybe even friends
in unexpected places.

It's time to call on
the fossil fuel industry

to help solve the problem
their product has created.

Their engineers know how,

we just need to get the management
to look up from their shoes.

Thank you.