BP said on its third-quarter results call last week that it will enter a”transformational phase”in 2020 in which it will start moving more quickly to adapt to the energy transition.Royal Dutch Shell said much the same,responding like BP to the sharp shift in public and political sentiment on climate change that is forcing the entire energy industry to alter business models(WGI Oct.16’19).To date,oil and gas producers have been slower to adapt than power utilities,which seem to be taking Paris climate agreement goals very seriously-not necessarily good news for gas.Utilities have begun to implement ambitious decarbonization plans-at least in Europe and,perhaps more surprisingly,in the US-typically aiming at reaching carbon-neutral generation by 2050.This has already translated into substantial emissions reductions,particularly through coal-to-gas switching,but gas emissions will soon prove incompatible with a Paris-compliant trajectory.Average carbon dioxide emissions of the companies in Energy Intelligence’s latest annual Top 100 Green Utilities report,now in its eighth year-which also covers independent power producers-reached 440 kilograms per megawatt hour last year,down from 565 kg CO2/MWh in 2011,when the rankings were first published.But the top 10 companies achieved just 93 kg CO2/MWh.The six European,two Chinese and two US firms together own 318 gigawatts or a staggering 80% of carbon-free capacity,almost equally split between nuclear(28%),hydropower(26%)and other renewables(25%).
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