How to Realistically Decarbonize the Oil and Gas Industry | Bjørn Otto Sverdrup | TED Countdown

I'm an identical twin.

This is a picture of me and my twin brother,

running a 60-meters race, five years old.

(Laughter)

I can't tell who's who.

My mom can still not tell the difference either.

Also, at the time, I didn't know that the air we were breathing

when we were running

had a concentration of 320 particles per million.

Today, that is 410.

Scarily close to the 430 threshold

scientists are telling us we need to stay below

in order to keep below 1.5 degrees warming.

This change has happened in my lifetime,

in our lifetimes.

A big part of the challenge is the energy system.

Actually two thirds of the energy system are coming from fossil fuels.

So basically we cannot fix climate without fixing the energy system.

And the one industry that needs to make the biggest change

is the oil and gas industry.

Many are blaming the oil and gas industry,

giving up on it ever changing,

being very impatient to see change.

I can understand that impatience.

I am impatient too.

But I still believe that we are better off not ignoring this industry.

Let's instead try to turn it into --

to help drive the change we need to see.

Let me tell you why.

I lead an organization that's called

Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, OGCI.

It brings together 12 of the largest companies in the world,

and their CEOs.

The members, household names,

are actually producing, every day,

nearly 30 percent of the world's oil and gas production.

Even if some of you would like these companies to just disappear,

what they are doing matters to all of us every day.

Changing the energy system is going to be hard.

We need to turn from an 80 percent fossil-fuel-based system

to a completely zero-emission system.

That would require massive investments,

radical policy shift and us changing behavior.

We need to balance that transition with the needs of nature, fairness

and also to avoid shortage of energy

and economic dislocations.

And time is very limited.

So it's very hard to just comprehend the scale of the change.

But change, we must.

A handful of companies cannot take on that challenge alone.

But we can do more than most.

So let me offer you one framework

of what I believe we can do

and why it matters.

I call that the 1/4/20 challenge.

That is, one gigaton,

four gigatons and 20 gigatons of CO2.

Have in mind, the entire CO2 emission system is 55 gigatons.

Thirty-three related to energy,

13 of those coal.

And we know what needs to happen to the coal.

So the 20 is the sum of the emissions from the oil and gas.

Let's start with the one.

So when the oil and gas,

the members of the organization OGCI, are producing oil and gas,

they are having emissions,

mainly from compressors and turbines.

So they use energy to provide energy, right?

The scope 1 emissions.

So the first challenge is to bring those emissions to zero.

A few weeks ago, the CEOs came together

and for the first time signed up on the shared ambition

to bring all their own emissions to net-zero

within the time frame set by the Paris Agreement.

They also promised to leverage their influence

to achieve the same in all the fields where they’re a non-operator.

They have never done that before.

And to me, that was a significant step.

How are we going to do that?

Eliminating methane emissions, slashing flaring,

electrifying operations.

In a bit longer, distant future,

we will need to use hydrogen in our own operations,

carbon capture and storage and other solutions.

Each of the companies will have different ways

of fulfilling their net-zero ambition.

You might say it doesn't matter or it's not enough,

but daring to say "net-zero" changes minds.

It shifts your mindset from one of defensive to proactive.

From incremental change to having your eyes on the end goal.

I've seen this happen in my own company

called Equinor, of Norway.

A few years ago, we decided to strive for net-zero.

You know what happened?

Deep changes in attitudes and behavior of all of the employees started to unfold,

not only among the top management.

Thousands of engineers started to look at new solutions

had looked at them differently.

Renewables started to become interesting,

investment plans changed,

cash started to flow differently.

Now, one gigaton is only a part of the challenge,

but it's quite big.

To put it into perspective,

it's the combined emissions of all airplanes in the world worldwide.

So let's try to make that happen.

The four-gigaton challenge.

That is the prize

if we're able to get all of the oil and gas companies in the world

to accept the same membership.

All the national oil companies,

all the smaller companies.

Four gigaton.

I'm going to repeat that number,

four billion tons of CO2 each year.

That is equal to seven percent of the world's total emissions.

A price that is so big that we cannot ignore it.

How can we do that?

We believe that we can lead the way

by helping to set ambitions, setting targets,

and also to help countries to identify where the problem [is].

We have set targets,

we have all sorts of shorter-term targets towards 2025,

for our own performance,

but we also are setting targets that can inspire the industry.

Recently, we also acquired satellite services

to help countries better monitor their methane leaks, for instance,

a very big part of the challenge.

The good thing with this industry,

we know how to solve the problems.

But we also know that an enabling policy environment

will accelerate the change.

Particularly important thing is a price on carbon.

In some countries, 50 dollars per ton will drive change.

In my own country, Norway,

the plan now is to increase that to nearly 200 dollars by 2030.

That is driving change.

Now, the one- and the four-gigaton challenge

is both about improving the existing energy system.

What we need to do is, of course, to also build a future energy system.

New solutions.

The 20-gigaton challenge, as I call it, is a very different challenge.

It's a truly collective one.

Supply needs to change

as does demand.

And we need to find a way of doing that

as quickly as possible and as orderly as possible.

The oil and gas industry can, of course, decarbonize quicker themselves,

but they can also help others achieve their decarbonization efforts.

And inside industry, a transformation is underway.

Not complete,

but I dare say underway.

Oil and gas companies are starting to see themselves

as energy companies and act like it.

Renewables is becoming the fastest growth area.

For Equinor, my company, for instance,

the biggest new project is not another oil and gas platform.

It’s actually an offshore wind farm development in the North Sea:

a ten-billion-dollar investment

with the capability to power 4.5 million homes in the UK.

Further up north in the UK,

Shell, BP and other companies

are involved in developing carbon-capture and storage industry

that will help cement, steel, and other industries

meet their climate efforts.

This used to be future music, but now it is happening.

Seven of those projects are underway.

We believe they can be materialized by 2025.

More than 25 other projects are ongoing.

Similarly, in hydrogen, synthetic fuels, biofuels,

quite a lot of things are happening.

For me to unlock the potential, the scale, the capacity,

the competence of this industry,

to put it to work,

to drive the broad transformation of society that we really need

is what motivates me.

To speed it up, not to slow it down.

Then we need to act and use our voice

in accordance with the spirit and the consistency

of the Paris Agreement.

This is what inspires me.

And I know, of course, believing is important,

but at the end of the day,

we will be judged by how we are actually delivering

on the 1/4/20-gigaton challenge.

The race is on.

Thanks.

(Applause)

Lindsay Levin: Come back.

Bjørn Otto, thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

Thank you very much for that, and help us square the circle here.

Because in the meantime,

so many of these companies continue to push for new exploration.

How do we make sense of that with the story that you've just shared?

BOS: This is a very important question,

so should you continue to explore, should you continue to produce,

what should you do with that?

And I think if you just look at the numbers,

actually the world total exploration for new oil and gas

has dropped nearly 55 percent over the last years.

It's in the lowest level in 16 years, so I think things are changing.

Some companies are already guiding that they'll plan to reduce production.

I think all of the companies are recognizing

that if we're going to meet the ambitions of the Paris Agreement

or to, you know, have a habitable climate,

oil needs to decline, right?

So the question of timing.

So how do you balance that?

You cannot really stop delivering a product

that society isn't ready to not use anymore.

So I think if we would really like

to accelerate a decline in production of oil and gas,

shift the demand, right?

So make sure that we see lasting changes

in much more use of electric cars,

much more investments in renewables, etc.

LL: And at the same time, of course,

these same companies are lobbying against a lot of that change.

So, you know, known for disinformation and misinformation,

could you just speak to us a little bit about transparency?

How do we build trust given that history and given the ongoing lobbying?

BOS: Yeah.

You know, I cannot take, you know, the blame for all the wrongdoings --

LL: I'm not blaming you, I'm asking.

BOS: Or you know, the pride for all the fantastic things that's been doing.

But you know what I can say, if you're looking ahead,

I believe that this industry needs to be much more transparent in the future.

LL: OK.

BOS: I think part of that transparency is both around carbon performance,

disclosure investments,

but also much more open around how they're using their voice

and how they're participating in the debates in society.

Personally, I think it's --

you've seen some of the reports coming out

where you're screening membership associations,

I believe that’s a useful step.

And I think we should expect

and require more transparency from both this industry

and other industries in this transition.

LL: Thank you, thank you.

BOS: Thank you.

(Applause)