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C of E Pensions Board applauds energy giants’ carbon pledges

08 January 2021

PA

A process technician at Equinor inspects equipment on the Johan Sverdrup field platform in the North Sea, Norway, in December 2019. Equinor is one of six companies to jointly agree to apply six Energy Transition Principles this week

A process technician at Equinor inspects equipment on the Johan Sverdrup field platform in the North Sea, Norway, in December 2019. 

THE Church of England Pensions Board has welcomed pledges by eight of the world’s leading oil and gas producers on moving the energy industry away from fossil fuels.

The companies — BP, Eni, Equinor, Galp, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Repsol, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total — have jointly agreed to apply six Energy Transition Principles. They are to: support publicly the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change; work to reduce carbon emissions from their own operations and by customers and society; develop and promote approaches to reducing emissions; support and promote development of emissions sinks, such as carbon capture and utilisation and storage technology; provide disclosure related to climate-change risks and opportunities; and report information about their memberships of industry and trade associations and their alignment with the companies’ key climate-advocacy and -policy positions.

Adam Matthews, who represents the Pensions Board on the Climate Action 100+ European Working Group on a Net Zero Standard in Oil and Gas, said: “This is an important foundational commitment. It represents a significant consolidation of the progress that has been made in Europe, whilst also seeing the first US oil and gas company joining with their European peers.”

Climate Action 100+ is an investors’ initiative launched in 2017 to put pressure on the world’s largest corporate greenhouse-gas emitters to take action in response to climate change. It is backed by more than 500 investors with more than £37.8 trillion in assets under management.

Mr Matthews, who chairs the working group, said: “As CA100+ investors, we are in extensive and detailed dialogue with the oil and gas sector, and it is extremely helpful to have a position from these companies that unifies around core principles, including on scope-3 emissions and corporate lobbying, amongst others.”

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