At COP28, fifty companies pledge to reduce emissions
Fifty countries including the UAE and Saudi Arabia signed an official charter that stipulates reducing carbon and methane emissions.
The United Arab Emirates presidency of COP28 with the support of Saudi Arabia, has got fifty oil and gas companies, which account for more than 40 percent of global oil production, to sign pledges to reduce methane and carbon dioxide emissions.
On Dec. 2nd, they signed the Oil and Gas Removal Charter, which calls for achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or earlier. This is in addition to achieving “near-zero” methane emissions by 2030.
To reduce methane emissions by 2030, investment of $75 billion is needed. Already the UAE have pledged 1 billion dollars to this end.
The Decarbonisation Charter is part of what the UAE dubbed a “global accelerator,” a system of activities aimed at accelerating the energy transition and significantly reducing global emissions.
Methane gas has been found to be more harmful to the environment than dioxide gas and is considered one of the main causes of climate change.
Methane is a colourless, odourless gas which is invisible to the naked eye. It is responsible for more than 25 percent of global warming.
The European Union made a Global Methane Pledge in 2021, to stop reducing global methane by 30% by 2030. They stopped short of pledging 15 countries, but few have worked out details on how to achieve that. Earlier this month, the EU also reached a deal to impose methane emissions limits on oil and gas being imported into Europe from 2030.
The COP28 Presidency announced that more than 110 countries also signed the global renewables and energy efficiency pledge on Dec. 2nd. Under this, countries commit to work collaboratively to triple the world’s current renewable energy generation capacity to at least 11,000 gigawatts by 2030.