When it comes to meeting the challenge of reducing CO2 emissions worldwide, the global oil industry has a critical role to play, according to the secretary general of OPEC.

“For our industry, we need to recognize that the environmental challenge is not only oil and gas in and of themselves. It is the emissions that come from burning them,” said Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, secretary general for OPEC. “This is not about choosing one energy source over another. It has been suggested in some quarters that renewables are our only energy future. Not only is this line of thinking misguided, it overlooks the critical role the oil industry can play in being part of the solution.”

Solutions can be found in technologies that reduce and ultimately eliminate emissions, he said.

His remarks, delivered during a speech given this week at IHS Markit’s Indian Energy Forum by CERAWeek, came as the world transitions toward cleaner sources of energy in efforts to lower emissions. Countries are actively working to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature increases to well below 2 C (3.6 F) above pre-industrial levels, and even further to 1.5 C.

Earlier this month, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report finding that limiting global warming to 1.5 C would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities. “Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050,” IPCC said in a news release. “This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.”

Renewables would need to supply between 70% and 85% of the world’s electricity needs to help limit global warming to 1.5 C, according to the report’s summary.

While the IPCC said that different mitigation strategies can be used to achieve net emissions reductions, all of its illustrative model pathways involve CO2 removal. Bioenergy and carbon capture and storage were among the technologies required.

“Given the scale of this challenge to eliminate, according to the IPCC, 42 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in annual emissions, a collective and comprehensive response is not only essential but urgently needed,” Barkindo said. “The key word here, I would like us to underline, is emissions. We cannot afford to disregard the positive contributions of any one energy source or industry.”

He added that OPEC remains “fully engaged with and supportive” of the Paris Agreement.

“With regard to the energy transition, it should, therefore, be stressed that it is vital to use energy efficiently and constantly develop and adopt cleaner energy technologies, such as carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS),” Barkindo said. “Coordinated action should also be enhanced, supporting research and development, innovation and technology transfer, while at the same time providing sufficient financial support.”

Many oil and gas companies—large and small alike—have already began working to reduce emissions, pouring millions of dollars into the cause.

In September, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) and Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) joined the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OCGI), which aims to “to increase the ambition, speed and scale of the initiatives undertaken by its individual companies to help reduce manmade greenhouse gas emissions, in particular from the production and use of oil and gas in power, heating, industry and transport,” according to the group’s website.

Other OGCI members are BP Plc (NYSE: BP), CNPC, Eni SpA (NYSE: E), Equinor ASA (NYSE: EQNR), Pemex, Petrobras, Repsol SA, Saudi Aramco, Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE: RDS.A) and Total SA (NYSE: TOT). Together, the OGCI member companies represent about 30% of global oil and gas production and supply nearly 20% of global primary energy consumption.

Given the role of technology in helping reach emissions reduction goals, the topic also surfaced during a panel on “game-changing technologies for India’s energy transition” during the Indian Energy Forum.

CCUS is a must, according to Vijay Swarup, vice president of R&D for ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Co. Meeting the goals will require the industry to:

  • Get as efficient as it can, the talk of many companies today;
  • Go through fuel switching such as moving to cleaner-burning natural gas; and
  • Decarbonize, he said. There are only two ways to accomplish the latter, he said, is either using CO2 as a feed, such as in biofuels, or carbon capture.

Carbon capture, which Swarup described as being in an early stage, must be among the elements, he said.

“We’ve got to get it to where it’s scalable, where it’s globally deployable. There’s both the above ground, which is capturing the CO2 and the belowground, which is putting the CO2 to rest. It’s not necessarily something that’s going to hit major breakthroughs in the next couple of years,” Swarup said.

“That’s why OGCI and companies like ours are upping our research in that space. Exxon Mobil has been at carbon capture for decades,” he added. “But we know we have to come up with better ways to do it because it is a necessary element to the future.”

Velda Addison can be reached at vaddison@hartenergy.com.