I'm an identical twin.
This is a picture of me
and my twin brother,
running a 60-meters race, five years old.
(Laughter)
I can't tell who's who.
My mom can still not tell
the difference either.
Also, at the time, I didn't know
that the air we were breathing
when we were running
had a concentration
of 320 particles per million.
Today, that is 410.
Scarily close to the 430 threshold
scientists are telling us
we need to stay below
in order to keep below
1.5 degrees warming.
This change has happened in my lifetime,
in our lifetimes.
A big part of the challenge
is the energy system.
Actually two thirds of the energy system
are coming from fossil fuels.
So basically we cannot fix climate
without fixing the energy system.
And the one industry that needs
to make the biggest change
is the oil and gas industry.
Many are blaming the oil and gas industry,
giving up on it ever changing,
being very impatient to see change.
I can understand that impatience.
I am impatient too.
But I still believe that we are better off
not ignoring this industry.
Let's instead try to turn it into --
to help drive the change we need to see.
Let me tell you why.
I lead an organization that's called
Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, OGCI.
It brings together 12 of the largest
companies in the world,
and their CEOs.
The members, household names,
are actually producing, every day,
nearly 30 percent of the world's
oil and gas production.
Even if some of you would like these
companies to just disappear,
what they are doing
matters to all of us every day.
Changing the energy system
is going to be hard.
We need to turn from an 80 percent
fossil-fuel-based system
to a completely zero-emission system.
That would require massive investments,
radical policy shift
and us changing behavior.
We need to balance that transition
with the needs of nature, fairness
and also to avoid shortage of energy
and economic dislocations.
And time is very limited.
So it's very hard to just comprehend
the scale of the change.
But change, we must.
A handful of companies
cannot take on that challenge alone.
But we can do more than most.
So let me offer you one framework
of what I believe we can do
and why it matters.
I call that the 1/4/20 challenge.
That is, one gigaton,
four gigatons
and 20 gigatons of CO2.
Have in mind, the entire CO2
emission system is 55 gigatons.
Thirty-three related to energy,
13 of those coal.
And we know what needs
to happen to the coal.
So the 20 is the sum of the emissions
from the oil and gas.
Let's start with the one.
So when the oil and gas,
the members of the organization OGCI,
are producing oil and gas,
they are having emissions,
mainly from compressors and turbines.
So they use energy
to provide energy, right?
The scope 1 emissions.
So the first challenge is to bring
those emissions to zero.
A few weeks ago, the CEOs came together
and for the first time signed up
on the shared ambition
to bring all their own
emissions to net-zero
within the time frame
set by the Paris Agreement.
They also promised
to leverage their influence
to achieve the same in all the fields
where they’re a non-operator.
They have never done that before.
And to me, that was a significant step.
How are we going to do that?
Eliminating methane emissions,
slashing flaring,
electrifying operations.
In a bit longer, distant future,
we will need to use hydrogen
in our own operations,
carbon capture and storage
and other solutions.
Each of the companies
will have different ways
of fulfilling their net-zero ambition.
You might say it doesn't matter
or it's not enough,
but daring to say "net-zero"
changes minds.
It shifts your mindset from one
of defensive to proactive.
From incremental change
to having your eyes on the end goal.
I've seen this happen in my own company
called Equinor, of Norway.
A few years ago, we decided
to strive for net-zero.
You know what happened?
Deep changes in attitudes and behavior
of all of the employees started to unfold,
not only among the top management.
Thousands of engineers started
to look at new solutions
had looked at them differently.
Renewables started to become interesting,
investment plans changed,
cash started to flow differently.
Now, one gigaton is only
a part of the challenge,
but it's quite big.
To put it into perspective,
it's the combined emissions of all
airplanes in the world worldwide.
So let's try to make that happen.
The four-gigaton challenge.
That is the prize
if we're able to get all
of the oil and gas companies in the world
to accept the same membership.
All the national oil companies,
all the smaller companies.
Four gigaton.
I'm going to repeat that number,
four billion tons of CO2 each year.
That is equal to seven percent
of the world's total emissions.
A price that is so big
that we cannot ignore it.
How can we do that?
We believe that we can lead the way
by helping to set ambitions,
setting targets,
and also to help countries to identify
where the problem [is].
We have set targets,
we have all sorts of shorter-term
targets towards 2025,
for our own performance,
but we also are setting targets
that can inspire the industry.
Recently, we also acquired
satellite services
to help countries better monitor
their methane leaks, for instance,
a very big part of the challenge.
The good thing with this industry,
we know how to solve the problems.
But we also know that an enabling
policy environment
will accelerate the change.
Particularly important thing
is a price on carbon.
In some countries,
50 dollars per ton will drive change.
In my own country, Norway,
the plan now is to increase that
to nearly 200 dollars by 2030.
That is driving change.
Now, the one- and
the four-gigaton challenge
is both about improving
the existing energy system.
What we need to do is, of course,
to also build a future energy system.
New solutions.
The 20-gigaton challenge, as I call it,
is a very different challenge.
It's a truly collective one.
Supply needs to change
as does demand.
And we need to find a way of doing that
as quickly as possible
and as orderly as possible.
The oil and gas industry can, of course,
decarbonize quicker themselves,
but they can also help others
achieve their decarbonization efforts.
And inside industry,
a transformation is underway.
Not complete,
but I dare say underway.
Oil and gas companies
are starting to see themselves
as energy companies and act like it.
Renewables is becoming
the fastest growth area.
For Equinor, my company, for instance,
the biggest new project
is not another oil and gas platform.
It’s actually an offshore wind farm
development in the North Sea:
a ten-billion-dollar investment
with the capability to power
4.5 million homes in the UK.
Further up north in the UK,
Shell, BP and other companies
are involved in developing
carbon-capture and storage industry
that will help cement, steel,
and other industries
meet their climate efforts.
This used to be future music,
but now it is happening.
Seven of those projects are underway.
We believe they can be
materialized by 2025.
More than 25 other projects are ongoing.
Similarly, in hydrogen,
synthetic fuels, biofuels,
quite a lot of things are happening.
For me to unlock the potential,
the scale, the capacity,
the competence of this industry,
to put it to work,
to drive the broad transformation
of society that we really need
is what motivates me.
To speed it up, not to slow it down.
Then we need to act and use our voice
in accordance with the spirit
and the consistency
of the Paris Agreement.
This is what inspires me.
And I know, of course,
believing is important,
but at the end of the day,
we will be judged by how
we are actually delivering
on the 1/4/20-gigaton challenge.
The race is on.
Thanks.
(Applause)
Lindsay Levin: Come back.
Bjørn Otto, thank you.
Thank you very much for that.
Thank you very much for that,
and help us square the circle here.
Because in the meantime,
so many of these companies
continue to push for new exploration.
How do we make sense of that
with the story that you've just shared?
BOS: This is a very important question,
so should you continue to explore,
should you continue to produce,
what should you do with that?
And I think if you just
look at the numbers,
actually the world total exploration
for new oil and gas
has dropped nearly 55 percent
over the last years.
It's in the lowest level in 16 years,
so I think things are changing.
Some companies are already guiding
that they'll plan to reduce production.
I think all of the companies
are recognizing
that if we're going to meet the ambitions
of the Paris Agreement
or to, you know, have a habitable climate,
oil needs to decline, right?
So the question of timing.
So how do you balance that?
You cannot really stop
delivering a product
that society isn't ready
to not use anymore.
So I think if we would really like
to accelerate a decline
in production of oil and gas,
shift the demand, right?
So make sure that we see lasting changes
in much more use of electric cars,
much more investments in renewables, etc.
LL: And at the same time, of course,
these same companies are lobbying
against a lot of that change.
So, you know, known for disinformation
and misinformation,
could you just speak to us
a little bit about transparency?
How do we build trust given that history
and given the ongoing lobbying?
BOS: Yeah.
You know, I cannot take, you know,
the blame for all the wrongdoings --
LL: I'm not blaming you, I'm asking.
BOS: Or you know, the pride for all
the fantastic things that's been doing.
But you know what I can say,
if you're looking ahead,
I believe that this industry needs to be
much more transparent in the future.
LL: OK.
BOS: I think part of that transparency
is both around carbon performance,
disclosure investments,
but also much more open
around how they're using their voice
and how they're participating
in the debates in society.
Personally, I think it's --
you've seen some of the reports coming out
where you're screening
membership associations,
I believe that’s a useful step.
And I think we should expect
and require more transparency
from both this industry
and other industries in this transition.
LL: Thank you, thank you.
BOS: Thank you.
(Applause)