Oil major Exxon Mobil Corp., under increasing pressure from investors and climate change campaigners, said on Monday it planned to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions over the next five years.
Last Thursday, the Church Commissioners for England joined growing investor campaigns to demand changes at Exxon and backed calls for a board refresh and development of a strategy for the largest US oil company’s transition to cleaner fuels.
Several of Exxon’s rivals this year have set longer-term climate ambitions, including Royal Dutch Shell and BP Plc, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
Exxon said it would start reporting so-called Scope 3 emissions in 2021, a large category of greenhouse gases emitted from fuels and products it sells to customers, such as jet fuel and gasoline.
By 2025, Exxon would reduce the intensity of its oilfield greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent to 20 per cent from 2016 levels. It did not set an overall emissions target, however, and reducing intensity means that emissions still could rise if oil and gas output grows.
The reduction would be supported by a 40 per cent -50 per cent decrease in methane intensity and a 35 per cent 45 per cent decrease in flaring intensity across Exxon’s global operations, with routine natural gas flaring eliminated within a decade, the company said.
Since the 2015 Paris climate accord set a goal of keeping global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), pressure from investors has increased and some of Exxon’s peers have agreed on more ambitious targets. Exxon said its goals were in line with the Paris accord, which the United States exited under President Donald Trump but that President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin.
“We certainly recognise the direction of travel that Paris sets out and the ambitions for society to get to net zero as early as possible before the end of the century,” Peter Trelenberg, ExxonMobil director of greenhouse gas and climate change, told a news conference on Monday.
“What we have tried to do is to develop specific actionable plans that we can hold our organization accountable to drive continuous improvement in emissions.”
Further goals would be set as the 2025 targets are met, Trelenberg said. (Reuters)
