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

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?

My IPCC results 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 the competition.

I said, okay, 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% 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 ally 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 meet up 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 off

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 stop gap.

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%

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

a 100% carbon capture and storage by 2050,

which is what net zero means,

takes us through 10%
carbon capture in 2030,

50% in 2040,

a 100% in 2050.

To put that in context

we are currently capturing and
storing less than not 0.1%.

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,

own a 10% storage requirements
by 2030 for example,

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

But unlike attacks

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 cleanup after a
still profitable industry?

Now, 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 servants

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 off?

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 of the industry cheat.

Over the coming decades
there'll probably will be leaks,

and the maybe 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 tooling 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.