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The clean energy claims of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell: A mismatch between discourse, actions and investments
The energy products of oil and gas majors have contributed significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and planetary warming over the past century. Decarbonizing the global economy by mid-century to avoid dangerous climate change thus cannot occur without a profound transformation of their fossil fuel-based business models. Recently, several majors are increasingly discussing clean energy and climate change, pledging decarbonization strategies, and investing in alternative energies. Some even claim to be transforming into clean energy companies. Given a history of obstructive climate actions and “greenwashing”, there is a need to objectively evaluate current and historical decarbonization efforts and investment behavior. This study focuses on two American (Chevron, ExxonMobil) and two European majors (BP, Shell). Using data collected over 2009–2020, we comparatively examine the extent of decarbonization and clean energy transition activity from three perspectives: (1) keyword use in annual reports ( discourse ); (2) business strategies ( pledges and actions ); and (3) production, expenditures and earnings for fossil fuels along with investments in clean energy ( investments ). We found a strong increase in discourse related to “climate”, “low-carbon” and “transition”, especially by BP and Shell. Similarly, we observed increasing tendencies toward strategies related to decarbonization and clean energy. But these are dominated by pledges rather than concrete actions. Moreover, the financial analysis reveals a continuing business model dependence on fossil fuels along with insignificant and opaque spending on clean energy. We thus conclude that the transition to clean energy business models is not occurring, since the magnitude of investments and actions does not match discourse. Until actions and investment behavior are brought into alignment with discourse, accusations of greenwashing appear well-founded.
Journal Article
Net zero energy design
Conveniently organized and packed with robust technical content and clear explanations of key principles Written by an architect who is the director of sustainability at a global architecture firm, Net Zero Energy Design is a practical guide for architects and related construction professionals who want to design and build net zero energy commercial architecture. It offers no-nonsense strategies, step-by-step technical analysis, and valuable examples, in addition to developed case studies. With a focus on application in a variety of building types and scales, the book also develops a broad-based understanding of all the integrated principles involved in achieving net zero energy. This book is an indispensable resource for anyone venturing into net zero energy design, construction, and operation, and it also serves as an excellent resource on a variety of sustainable design topics. Important features include: Organization based upon the commercial building delivery process Robust technical content for use in actual project applications Analysis examples that demonstrate key technical principles Plenty of design data for use as a valuable design resource Abundant and sophisticated information graphics and color illustrations and photographs A distinct design focus on the content that inspires adoption of principles into projects
eBook
Are digital business and digital public services a driver for better energy security? Evidence from a European sample
This paper empirically analyses the impacts of the digital transformation process in the business and public sectors on energy security (ES). We employ 8 indicators to represent four aspects of energy security, including availability, acceptability, develop-ability, and sustainability. Digital businesses development is captured by e-Commerce (including e-Commerce sales, e-Commerce turnover, e-Commerce web sales) and e-Business (including customer relation management (CRM) usage and cloud usage). Digital public services development is reflected by business mobility and key enablers. Different econometric techniques are utilized in a database of 24 European Union countries from 2011 to 2019. Our estimation results demonstrate that digital businesses play a critical role in improving the acceptability and develop-ability of energy security, while digitalization in public services supports achieving energy sustainability goals. The use of modern digital technology such as big data, cloud computing is extremely important to ensure the security of the energy system, especially the availability of energy. For further discussion on the role of digital public services, we reveal a nonlinear association between digitalization in the public sector and energy intensity and energy consumption, suggesting the acceptability and develop-ability of energy security can be enhanced if the digital transformation process achieves a certain level.
Journal Article
Will sustainability fly? : aviation fuel options in a low-carbon world
\"While international negotiations to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been less than satisfactory, there is a presumption that a significant level of multi-lateral commitment will be realized at some point. International air and marine travel have been left to one side in past talks because the pursuit of agreement proceeds on the basis of commitment by sovereign nations and the effects of these specific commercial activities are, by their nature, difficult to corral and assign to specific national jurisdictions. However, air travel is increasing and, unless something is done, emissions from this segment of our world economy will form a progressively larger percentage of the total, especially as emissions fall in other activities.\" -- Provided by publisher.
Book
Renewable energy consumption in Africa: the role of economic well-being and economic freedom
This study investigates the role of economic well-being and economic freedom as drivers of renewable energy consumption using the share of renewables in total energy consumption in Africa. To achieve this, the study employs a panel data of 32 African countries over the period 1996-2017. To deal with identification challenges associated with panel time-series data, we use the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares econometric technique. As part of our findings, first, we have evidence that increasing economic well-being in Africa increases the share of renewables in total energy consumption to a point after which it turns negative (inverted U shape). Second, the disaggregated measures of economic freedom show that both property rights and tax burden decrease the share of renewables in total energy consumption. On the contrary, an increase in trade freedom and business freedom measures increases the share of renewables in total energy consumption. Toward the goal of promoting access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030, governments in Africa should actively encourage trade freedom and business freedom to enhance the share of renewable energy consumption. Similarly, reducing the tax burden will promote the share of renewable energy consumption. Likewise, we call for further investigation into our evidence of a negative relationship between property rights and the share of renewables in total energy consumption.
Journal Article
EU law and international investment arbitration : the compatibility of ISDS in Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) and the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) with the Autonomy of EU Law
\"The EU's participation in international dispute resolution mechanisms presents particular problems owing to its multilevel governance and its autonomy from international and national law. The inclusion of foreign direct investment in the Common Commercial policy in the Treaty of Lisbon, expanded those to investment arbitrations under Member States' BITs, as the Court of Justice ruled in Achmea. EU Law and International Investment Arbitration, examines the impact of that inclusion beyond Achmea, from the perspectives of international and EU law, to the remaining extra-EU BITs of the Member States and the Energy Charter Treaty\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Assessing the macroeconomic impacts of individual behavioral changes on carbon emissions
In the last decade, instigated by the Paris agreement and United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP22 and COP23), the efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels are expanding. The required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions imply a massive decarbonization worldwide with much involvement of regions, cities, businesses, and individuals in addition to the commitments at the national levels. Improving end-use efficiency is emphasized in previous IPCC reports (IPCC 2014). Serving as the primary ‘agents of change’ in the transformative process towards green economies, households have a key role in global emission reduction. Individual actions, especially when amplified through social dynamics, shape green energy demand and affect investments in new energy technologies that collectively can curb regional and national emissions. However, most energy-economics models—usually based on equilibrium and optimization assumptions—have a very limited representation of household heterogeneity and treat households as purely rational economic actors. This paper illustrates how computational social science models can complement traditional models by addressing this limitation. We demonstrate the usefulness of behaviorally rich agent-based computational models by simulating various behavioral and climate scenarios for residential electricity demand and compare them with the business as usual (SSP2) scenario. Our results show that residential energy demand is strongly linked to personal and social norms. Empirical evidence from surveys reveals that social norms have an essential role in shaping personal norms. When assessing the cumulative impacts of these behavioral processes, we quantify individual and combined effects of social dynamics and of carbon pricing on individual energy efficiency and on the aggregated regional energy demand and emissions. The intensity of social interactions and learning plays an equally important role for the uptake of green technologies as economic considerations, and therefore in addition to carbon-price policies (top-down approach), implementing policies on education, social and cultural practices can significantly reduce residential carbon emissions.
Journal Article