ExxonKnews
February 13, 2024
In February 2020, BP made history as the first Big Oil company to make a “net-zero” pledge — a genre of climate plan that assumes greenhouse gasses can be “balanced” in the atmosphere through carbon sequestration, offsets, and other technologies to achieve “net-zero emissions.” BP announced its “ambition to become a net-zero company by 2050 or sooner,” and decrease oil and gas production by 40% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.
Since then, Exxon, Shell, and Chevron have joined BP in setting their own “net-zero” targets, aspirations, ambitions and goals. For years, advocates and experts have warned that these plans amount to greenwashing — that they’re not binding, rely on unproven technology to reduce emissions in far-out timelines, and have gone unmatched by actions as companies increase their production and exploration of fossil fuels.
Now, four years after BP’s original net-zero commitment, the oil giant is proving skeptics’ point. Despite its pledge, the company is moving toward producing even more oil and gas while scaling back its targets year after year.
