After two groups demanded action on climate change at BP’s annual shareholder meeting, the company declined to match the example set by Royal Dutch Shell Corp. and include emissions from the oil it sells in its climate targets but accepted a resolution from Climate Action 100+.
The resolution was drafted by a group of 300 investors and calls for the company to align its overall strategy with the 2015 Paris Agreement, which seeks to curb warming at under two degrees Celsius. Over 99 per cent of shareholders voted Tuesday in favour of the commitment.
However, only eight per cent of investors voted for a more radical proposition by a group called Follow This, that asked BP to commit to reducing all emissions — including those generated by BP’s customers, a standard would match that of Shell.
BP, alongside many other energy companies, argues that it cannot control indirect emissions. CNN reports that Shell is the only major player that has committed to cutting emissions generated by both its activities and the products it sells.
Canada and the Alberta government are loosening the reins on wastewater regulation, allowing oilsands companies to release water treated from toxic tailings ponds back into a main waterway.
The policy shift addresses a multimillion dollar liability for the province and industry, with new rules that may authorize the discharge of treated effluent into the Athabasca River. Despite the progress on crafting the regulation, industry has yet to prove they can effectively clean the toxin-laced water on a commercial scale.
According to documents obtained by the Globe and Mail, the federal government is hoping to finalize regulations for 2022 based on existing rules that allow discharge from metal, mineral and diamond mines, provided contaminants are within regulated limits for “deleterious” substances under the federal Fisheries Act. The new rules would also have to meet the standards of Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act.
Federal and industry officials say the move could advance reclamation efforts and drive down risk of environmental damage from possible seepage and dam failures. However, there are currently no chemical regulations for the safe release of what is known as process water, and companies have yet to develop technology for contaminant reduction.
Some of the world’s busiest shipping ports will soon be monitored for compliance with air pollution regulations by teams of drones.
Regulators in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Denmark, Norway, and others are bracing for rules that are meant to lower emission of sulphur oxides, pollutants often blamed for acid rain and aggravating human health conditions like asthma.
The technology will work by filtering through tens of thousands of vessels coming in and out of ports and collecting data to ascertain whether a ship is burning non-compliant fuel — ultimately helping authorities target the right carrier for a manual inspection.
The regulations, set by the International Maritime Organization, are set to begin Jan. 1, 2020, and require most ships across the globe to burn more expensive fuels, Bloomberg reports.
On Tuesday morning, Brent Crude was at US$71.88 and West Texas Intermediate US$63.02.
- Exclusive: Russian pipeline restart hit by dirty oil evacuation problems (Reuters)
- Oil Companies Join Corporate Lobbying Push for U.S. Carbon Tax (Bloomberg)
- Climate change: Global sea level rise could be bigger than expected (BBC News)
- Small nuclear reactors could make Alberta’s oilsands cleaner, industry experts suggest (CBC News)
- New Zealand investigators re-enter disaster-stricken mine after eight years (Reuters)
- Oil traders sell dirty Russian crude to Asian buyers (Reuters)
“Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it’s been,” Max Fawcett quotes Wayne Gretzky in his op-ed for the Globe and Mail.
“For the global divestment movement that has identified Alberta’s oil and gas industry as one of its primary targets, new Premier Jason Kenney might be about to get trapped in the offensive zone just as the puck heads the other way.”
He