More of those running the ‘race’ to net zero greenhouse gas emissions may be getting a little weary.
More of those running the “race” to net zero greenhouse gas emissions may be getting a little weary.
Shell and other leading energy groups have abandoned a six-year-long attempt to define a “net zero” emissions strategy after being told that such a standard would require them to stop developing new oil and gasfields, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.
Shell, Norway’s Aker BP and Canada’s Enbridge have all quit the expert advisory group of the global corporate climate standard-setting body, the Science Based Targets initiative, since late last year.
This followed the circulation of draft standards seen by the FT stipulating that companies should not develop “new oil and gasfields” once they had submitted a climate plan to the SBTi, or the end of 2027, whichever was sooner. It also said that production of oil and gas should fall significantly.
And what is the SBTi?
After recovering from reading its emetic name, go SBTi’s website to find out:
The SBTi is incorporated as a UK charity, with a subsidiary SBTi Services Limited, which hosts our target validation services (together with SBTi, the “SBTi Group”). Partner organizations who facilitated SBTi’s growth and development are CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, the We Mean Business Coalition, the World Resources Institute (WRI), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
These “partner organizations” turn out to be a motley crew, comprising the CDP (the Carbon Disclosure Project), a “global non-profit that runs the world’s only independent environmental disclosure system for companies, capital markets, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts,” a UN sponsored corporate initiative, which no public company that takes its fiduciary obligation to its shareholders seriously should join, a coalition based around “a core group of seven business-focused climate nonprofit organizations to accelerate the transition to a just and climate resilient net zero economy,” an “independent research institute,” peddling the notion of a polycrisis “rooted in economic, financial and governance systems that strain[s] the planet’s health while benefiting only some,” and the World Wide Fund for Nature, the organization with the panda logo.
Turn to the webpage for the CDP to discover that it is “a global non-profit that runs the world’s only independent environmental disclosure system for companies, capital markets, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts.”
Look a bit further to see how the CDP is funded to discover some familiar participants (quite a few of which are backed by happy taxpayers) including the British government, the European Commission, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Inc., greenwashing Norwegians and, ahem, USAID “via Rainforest Alliance.”
In other words, SBTi is another part of Big Sustainability, meaning that no public company that takes the fiduciary duty it owes its shareholders seriously should have anything to do with it either.
Shell reportedly withdrew its expert from SBTi’s “expert advisory board” after seeing a draft standard that “did not reflect the industry view in any substantive way.” It is quoted by the FT as saying that the standard set by SBTi’s climate standard-setting body should reflect society in a “realistic” way “while providing companies with sufficient flexibility” to become net zero by 2050. Clearly, in the company’s view, it had failed to do so. That Shell ever believed that SBTi ever would offer it a “realistic” pathway to meet these objectives other, I suppose, than by falling on its drill was hopelessly naïve.
The FT reports that the standard-setting body has “paused” its efforts to set a standard for the oil and gas sector, citing “capacity considerations.”