The initiative’s backers hope it brings national oil companies, which can range from giants like Saudi Aramco to smaller producers like Colombia’s Ecopetrol, into a dialogue on taming greenhouse gases. Keeping temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is impossible without aggressive action from those companies, which account for half of global crude production and sit on 90 percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves.
“Up until this point I think the [national oil companies] have not been engaged,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of energy with the Environmental Defense Fund, who has been involved in discussions on the Global Decarbonization Alliance. “The COP presidency is definitely leaning into this. It is not yet clear whether industry will respond.”
Details of the plan reviewed by POLITICO included a wide-ranging set of commitments that UAE’s COP28 team is asking national oil companies and other investor-owned companies to endorse, including supporting the Paris climate agreement’s vow to keep temperatures from rising 2 degrees C, with a stretch goal of 1.5 degrees C. Companies signing the pledge would commit to investing in renewable energy and low-carbon technology like carbon capture, though it does not specify any targets.
And the Global Decarbonization Alliance would require companies to commit to hit “near-zero” emissions of methane and “aim” to reduce routine flaring of it by 2030, which could bring some of the fastest benefits to cooling the planet given that gas is 86 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over 20 years.
Four people who reviewed the contents of the document said it is possible details have since changed as the discussions progressed.
Supporters say the effort would bring much-needed transparency to the national oil company operations that are typically the engine of their countries’ economies. And they hope it would challenge those companies to green their operations by applying public and international pressure they seldom face in their protected home markets.
A COP28 spokesperson did not comment on the contents of the document reviewed by POLITICO, but said that 20 companies — both national and investor-owned — have already signed up for the pledge.
“The COP28 Presidency has called on all IOCs and NOCs to step up, align around net zero by or before 2050, zero out methane emissions, and eliminate routine flaring before the end of this decade,” the spokesperson said. “This forms part of the COP28 President’s Action Agenda to fast track a just and orderly energy transition and the need to disrupt business-as-usual and decarbonize the energy system of today while we build the low-carbon solutions of tomorrow.”
Yet many climate activists dismissed the suite of commitments in the document as another tepid example of oil and gas industry greenwashing.
They contend several major oil and gas companies have already issued more stringent climate targets than the UAE envisions and that it duplicates existing frameworks that have more rigorous reporting requirements. They criticized the emerging pact for asking companies to achieve net-zero emissions only at their own facilities — and excluding the emissions from the oil and gas they produce and sell, which accounts for the majority of the industry’s warming.
“It’s a big gaping hole,” said David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative. “Net-zero in your own operations by 2050 is not terribly remarkable.”
Unlike the major companies like BP or ExxonMobil that are subject to pressure from shareholders and governments to reduce their emissions, there are few levers for the public to use in many countries with national oil companies. They are insulated from domestic competition and are focused on maximizing production to generate revenues for the state.
The national companies are notoriously opaque, which has generated much of the skepticism among climate advocates. Just 28 of 72 national oil companies published verifiable production data in 2021, according to researchers at the Natural Resource Governance Institute. Few publish data about their emissions.
And while the Global Decarbonization Alliance document says it “aims to measure, monitor, publicly report and independently verify” greenhouse gas emissions, it does not say those steps are required.
Much of the skepticism around the plan is because it is being pushed by the UAE and al-Jaber. Detractors claim he cannot impartially oversee the negotiations since he also runs the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., or ADNOC.
Al-Jaber has implemented some green initiatives at the…
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