Pathways to meeting climate goals with clean and affordable energy

ABSTRACT

Successfully managing climate change will require a broad policy focus that encourages the adoption and implementation of all viable net-zero pathways. Solutions that focus on the elimination of hydrocarbon fuels, rather than on managing green-house gas emissions, could have enormous unintended economic, security, and social justice consequences. The Net-Zero Producers Forum, with Canada as a founding member, is intended to provide a platform to advance a set of pragmatic and effective solutions to global climate challenges by fostering international cooperation among major hydrocarbon producers. The aim is to help achieve the necessary reduction in emissions in a sustainable manner. The objectives of the forum include support for development of net-zero strategies, promoting and implementing best practices, advancing carbon management technologies, and fostering cooperation on abatement of methane and fossil fuel combustion emissions. Transparent measurement and benchmarking tools will play an important role in carbon management and are critical to ensuing that technology and policy solutions are working as intended.

RÉSUMÉ

Gérer le changement climatique avec succès nécessitera de mettre l'accent sur une large politique générale encourageant l'adoption et la mise en oeuvre de toutes les solutions viables de réduction à zéro. Les solutions qui se concentrent sur l'élimination des hydrocarbures, plutôt que sur la gestion des émissions de gaz à effet de serre, pourraient avoir d'énormes conséquences involontaires sur l'économie, la sécurité et la justice sociale. Le forum des producteurs net-zéro, dont le Canada est l'un des membres fondateurs, a pour but d'offrir une plateforme pour faire progresser un ensemble de solutions pragmatiques et efficaces face aux défis climatiques mondiaux en favorisant la coopération internationale parmi les principaux producteurs d'hydrocarbures. Le but est de contribuer à la réduction nécessaire des émissions d'une manière durable. Les objectifs du forum comprennent le soutien à l'élaboration de stratégies net-zéro, la promotion et la mise en oeuvre des meilleures pratiques, la progression des technologies de gestion du carbone et la promotion de la coopération en matière de réduction des émissions de méthane et de combustion de combustibles fossiles. Des outils transparents de mesure et d'évaluation comparative joueront un rôle important dans la gestion du carbone et sont essentiels pour garantir que les solutions technologiques et politiques fonctionnent comme prévu.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• net-zero producers forum
• methane abatement
• circular carbon economy
• technology deployment
• CCE guide
• CCE index

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Access to the overview of the CCE guide and the eight supporting documents is available through KAPSARC (2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adam Sieminski

Adam Sieminski is Senior Advisor to the Board of Trustees of KAPSARC, an energy and sustainability think tank located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He served as President of KAPSARC from April 2018 to August 2021. In 2017, he held the James R. Schlesinger Chair for Energy & Geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2012 to 2016, he served as Administrator of the Energy Information Administration at the US Department of Energy. Before his government service, he had a long career as a financial analyst working in New York, London, and Washington, DC.