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BP: Proportion of coal in global fuel mix remains unchanged over 20 years

19 October 2018 [17:18] - TODAY.AZ

By  Trend


Proportion of coal in the global fuel mix has remained unchanged over 20 years, Bob Dudley, group chief executive of BP, said during the One Young World Summit.

“We can expect energy demand to rise by around a third by 2040. That’s like adding a whole new China and a whole new Europe’s worth of energy demand on top of what’s required today,” he said.

Dudley said that’s an enormous challenge – and it’s only half the story.

“The other half is that we need to bring greenhouse gas emissions down dramatically and quickly to tackle the threat of climate change,” he said.

The group chief executive of BP pointed out that after three years when emissions stayed relatively flat they started going up again last year and they look set to rise again this year.

“Projections indicate they could grow by around 10 percent by 2040 when they need to fall by half to be in line with the Paris climate goals. In a report looking at what would be required to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees on pre-industrial times it said emissions need to come down by 45 percent by 2030.”

“So, on the one hand we’ve got to provide much more energy than ever before. And on the other we have to lower emissions drastically,” he said.

Dudley noted that back in 1998, coal made up 38 percent of the global fuel mix in the power sector and the same figure was recorded in 2017.

“So in 20 years, despite all the policy initiatives, all the industry collaboration, all the technological innovation – our world still relies on the same proportion of coal for its electricity,” he said. “That’s a problem, but it’s also an opportunity. It means we can make a huge difference at speed on emissions and we already have the evidence that it works.”

He went on to add that in the US, replacing coal with gas in power generation has helped bring emissions back down to where they were in the early 1990s.

“In the UK the change is even more dramatic. Emissions are back where they were in the 1890s, when Queen Victoria was on the throne. Gas has made a big contribution to those reductions because it emits half the carbon of coal when burned to produce power,” said Dudley.

The group chief executive of BP noted that the company is committed to advancing a low carbon future. “The whole of the company is dedicated to it. We’re reducing emissions in our operations. We’re improving our products so our customers can reduce theirs. And we’re creating low carbon businesses.”

URL: http://www.today.az/news/business/175073.html

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