Oil giant, BP has come under fire from environmental groups that have condemned it for slashing its emissions targets when its profits hit record highs.
This is coming after the company said profit reached £23 billion last year and that it had slashed its emissions reduction targets by a third, and will produce much more oil and gas by the end of this decade than previously thought.
Reacting to the announcement from BP, Kate Blagojevic, head of Climate Justice at Greenpeace UK said BP’s new strategy will fail to deliver much-needed energy security in the UK and will also ensure that people lose their lives and livelihoods to devastating droughts, floods and heatwaves that are aggravated by climate change.
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In a similar reaction, Nick Dearden, Director at Global Justice Now accused BP of being responsible for more global historic emissions than most countries on earth, yet has no plans to stop polluting even in the face of a global climate crisis and his group called for a polluters’ tax.
BP had been one of the first oil and gas majors in the world to announce an ambition to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 and has previously promised that emissions will be 35-40 per cent lower by the end of this decade. However, that decision was rescinded on Tuesday when the company said it was significantly revising this target to a 20-30 per cent cut.
Boss Bernard Looney said it was about investing in both the transition and the energy that is needed today as he announced an extra $8 billion (£6.6 billion) for oil and gas investment by 2030 and another $8 billion for transition projects.
“With today’s announcement, we are leaning further in. We are growing our investment into our transition and, at the same time, growing investment into today’s energy system.”, he was quoted as saying.
BP said that it now plans to cut oil and gas production by just 25 per cent by the end of 2030 when compared to 2019. The previous target had been a 40 per cent cut.
Story was adapted from Independent.
