Pioneering systems theorist Donella Meadows makes a highly salient point. The problem with BP isn't because there are "bad people" at the top, and the solution isn't to replace them with "good people." The problem is that the decision-makers are constrained to act a certain way. If they made different decisions then.... those people won't be the decision-makers anymore! The same is true for politicians, consumers, etc.
It's a systems problem requiring systems solutions, not a problem of (as movies simplistically tell us) "bad people."
That saying that goes, we are the only species that will become extinct because survival wasn't profitable enough.
To the systems point we really, really really, really really need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels to 7 trillion a year globally. We have to stop making it profitable and encouraged by the system.
I think you have to take the owner or investor view on this. Say you own a big portion of an oil company, and you decide renewable energy is the future. What do you do? Probably sell your shares and invest elsewhere.
Oil companies are full of oil experts. There's no reason to think they'll do well competing with companies full of renewable energy experts.
The word "required" is not exactly wrong, but not exactly right either. Corporate governance is complicated and CEO's have a lot of room to maneuver. Some more than others.
Incentives are not destiny, though they are often persuasive. Peoples' decisions do matter, which is why there are people in the system and it's not just some idiot algorithm.
I agree with this, and what is amazing is that one particular layer in our systems with the biggest impact is electoral systems. Most people are blind to the fact that we live in the side effects of bad math that leads to less accountability. Electoral reform has trouble getting traction in some places. (Canada, USA, UK, and all these other fantastic "democracies" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting)
If we all had better representation, maybe we could have some accountability in governments to help enact policy that we actually want.
> It's a systems problem requiring systems solutions
It's a people problem requiring people to coordinate their actions for the net good of all people, instead of coordinating their abdication of responsibility for the good of the corporation.
What examples do we have of publicly-traded megacorps that have successfully made shifts at the scale which we see oil companies trying to make? (With extrinsic motivation being a primary driver?)
The libertarians constantly spouting that CEOs have a fiduciary obligation to shareholders are making the best argument for increased government regulation possible.
It's depressing to see companies moving back towards a carbon-burning future. It seemed like electric vehicles, battery technology, and solar power advancement was finally starting to kill the market for ICE engines and 'dirty' thermal power.
Between reversions like this, RTO mandates, and global conflicts that seem to include blowing up oil refineries it seems like there's absolutely no hope or interest from any major governments, businesses, or organizations to do anything to address global warming and climate change or even maintain our carbon outputs.
It's the standard cycle of progress. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win". (misattributed to Gandhi).
Moving from one stage to the next is not guaranteed, but EV's, battery & solar and definitely well past the first two stages. I'd argue that solar might even be in column 4 -- China installed 100 GW of it in the first six months of 2024, and the rest of the world a similar amount.
"In recent years, foreign banks have largely stopped financing coal operations, with Indonesian companies primarily securing financing from domestic institutions"
Nothing changed. We’re literally in an auto market flooded with EVs. Solar is a ROI positive investment that is gobbling up farmland in a problematic way.
If you’re a geek, you probably got hyped up by Elon when he was saving the world with electric cars. Now that he’s regressed to his effort to offer himself for impregnation services to repopulate and installing fascist dictatorships, the electric car stuff has gone by the wayside.
1-it's not companies, it's nation-states such as China and all across the "developing" world making the economic decision to use the cheapest, most easily accessible and reliable energy source (still fossil). And anyone providing examples of "yes, but..." should include an verifiable explanation as to why GHG emissions are not only increasing but accelerating
2- Carbon is much more than energy. Take a look at medicine, for example. Remove plastics, the field as we know it stops. Stop the flow of primary feedstock from refineries and no more medicines. Coal is another excellent example. You can replace as many coal plants as you want with renewables, you still need it to make the high-grade steel required to manufacture the renewables. Which is one reason why China is digging up more coal per year than any country ever had since the Industrial Revolution.
Does it not seem like electric vehicles will eventually swallow the world? It feels like it's 1900 and you're fighting tooth-and-nail to combat horse maltreatment while the rest of the world is surging toward a car-laden future. Would it not make more sense to simply focus efforts on EV adoption?
Expecting in magical science to magically break laws of physics wasn't the winning strategy. The energy exchange rate was never there despite all the virtue signalling.
> as investors focused on near-term returns rather than the energy transition.
If the justification for burning the earth to the ground continues to be “investors focused on short term returns” then governments need to start telling companies like BP they are legally and financially responsible for the effects those policies have on insurance rates and everything else.
At some point if they can’t do the right thing because it’s a sound long term investment strategy, they need to pay the real price of their short term focused strategy.
The way to do this is to price in the effect of the transactions on global climate. The reason the market will never solve this issue is because the cost is an externality; if we made it so every good sold included the cost to offset the damage to the environment, the market could address this issue.
Govts are in on the spoils of it. There’s no reason for govts to attain power over people and use it to lose their own power by destroying their economy.
The lack of action by people while expecting the government to do something is farcical.
“There ought to be a law!” the outraged but impotent mob cries - and there will be one, when you take matters into your own hands and write it, just like the people who established this government did.
> BP (BP.L), opens new tab has abandoned a target to cut oil and gas output by 2030 as CEO Murray Auchincloss scales back the firm's energy transition strategy to regain investor confidence, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
> The company continues to target net zero emissions by 2050.
"As Murray said at the start of year... the direction is the same – but we are going to deliver as a simpler, more focused, and higher value company," a BP spokesperson said.
Bit confused by the discrepancy of these statements. Is this because this is an insider source that has not been officially announced (seems like it), or are they saying "We still plan to cut emissions by 2050... maybe sometime later" (seems less likely).
They’re claiming to target 2050 in the hopes that the EU won’t come down on them with a sledge hammer.
The fact they’ve cut all targets for 2030, and cut back all renewable plans tells you there’s no actual plan to hit net zero.
This was a pretty obvious end result when the head of their renewables group resigned in April and instead of replacing her they decided to “shrink the executive group” by exactly one headcount.
My cynical interpretation is that the current CEO needed to begin taking steps to meet this 2030 goal and determined they didn't make financial sense. The 2050 goal is also unrealistic but is his successor's problem.
Anyone got the math, there's something like x degrees C more warming already calculated as future profits by oil companies: they've seen the oil fields, they know how much they can extract, and that amount of oil, burned, will cause those x degrees of warming. Asking them to keep it in the ground is like asking them to give up some billions of dollars of future profit ..
In 'The War Below' by Ernest Scheyder, I learned about the complexities of mining companies profiteering vs the rights of 'the land' as represented by the indigenous people and environmental activists. This is another example of how we use our knowledge to eviscerate the planet's resources developed over millenia for short term gains and enjoyment. And if you thought the oncoming demographic bomb and population collapse in the US, Europe, China and Japan will reduce demand, think again. The 0.1% who own this planet, will simply produce AI driven robots to do the work that humans cannot so they can continue to fly their jets and cruise in their yachts. How can we be so complacent when religious fanatics elsewhere are killing each other over so much less?
I'm rather torn on the discourse on this. I can understand disappointment that people are adjusting down on goals. What I don't understand is that this seems rather removed from outcome measures.
Specifically, in this context, they are still reducing output. Just not as aggressively. Do we have reporting on what this means in real impact terms? Last reporting I have seen, the majority of carbon emissions are from locations that we aren't governing. Such that this is akin to yelling at people for not eating all of their food, because someone somewhere is starving.
schiffern|1 year ago
It's a systems problem requiring systems solutions, not a problem of (as movies simplistically tell us) "bad people."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg
imglorp|1 year ago
To the systems point we really, really really, really really need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels to 7 trillion a year globally. We have to stop making it profitable and encouraged by the system.
https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...
nitwit005|1 year ago
Oil companies are full of oil experts. There's no reason to think they'll do well competing with companies full of renewable energy experts.
skybrian|1 year ago
Incentives are not destiny, though they are often persuasive. Peoples' decisions do matter, which is why there are people in the system and it's not just some idiot algorithm.
Also true of consumers and politicians.
_spduchamp|1 year ago
If we all had better representation, maybe we could have some accountability in governments to help enact policy that we actually want.
heresie-dabord|1 year ago
It's a people problem requiring people to coordinate their actions for the net good of all people, instead of coordinating their abdication of responsibility for the good of the corporation.
ksec|1 year ago
Is that another way of saying the "Market" will dictate everything?
I never thought about it this way in terms of politics. But may be some food for thought.
gffrd|1 year ago
What examples do we have of publicly-traded megacorps that have successfully made shifts at the scale which we see oil companies trying to make? (With extrinsic motivation being a primary driver?)
Cigarette companies?
fullshark|1 year ago
linkjuice4all|1 year ago
Between reversions like this, RTO mandates, and global conflicts that seem to include blowing up oil refineries it seems like there's absolutely no hope or interest from any major governments, businesses, or organizations to do anything to address global warming and climate change or even maintain our carbon outputs.
bryanlarsen|1 year ago
Moving from one stage to the next is not guaranteed, but EV's, battery & solar and definitely well past the first two stages. I'd argue that solar might even be in column 4 -- China installed 100 GW of it in the first six months of 2024, and the rest of the world a similar amount.
kieranmaine|1 year ago
From "Indonesia’s coal producers diversify as money for mining dries up" - https://www.ft.com/content/9546f590-2fb0-4939-a090-8bac7ba6a...
"In recent years, foreign banks have largely stopped financing coal operations, with Indonesian companies primarily securing financing from domestic institutions"
Spooky23|1 year ago
If you’re a geek, you probably got hyped up by Elon when he was saving the world with electric cars. Now that he’s regressed to his effort to offer himself for impregnation services to repopulate and installing fascist dictatorships, the electric car stuff has gone by the wayside.
Cults of personality usually end up toxic.
passwordoops|1 year ago
2- Carbon is much more than energy. Take a look at medicine, for example. Remove plastics, the field as we know it stops. Stop the flow of primary feedstock from refineries and no more medicines. Coal is another excellent example. You can replace as many coal plants as you want with renewables, you still need it to make the high-grade steel required to manufacture the renewables. Which is one reason why China is digging up more coal per year than any country ever had since the Industrial Revolution.
bamboozled|1 year ago
I'm still pressing a head with my personal contribution by cladding our new house in panels!
jimbob45|1 year ago
Caius-Cosades|1 year ago
tw04|1 year ago
If the justification for burning the earth to the ground continues to be “investors focused on short term returns” then governments need to start telling companies like BP they are legally and financially responsible for the effects those policies have on insurance rates and everything else.
At some point if they can’t do the right thing because it’s a sound long term investment strategy, they need to pay the real price of their short term focused strategy.
cortesoft|1 year ago
wahnfrieden|1 year ago
stonethrowaway|1 year ago
The lack of action by people while expecting the government to do something is farcical.
“There ought to be a law!” the outraged but impotent mob cries - and there will be one, when you take matters into your own hands and write it, just like the people who established this government did.
JohnMakin|1 year ago
> The company continues to target net zero emissions by 2050. "As Murray said at the start of year... the direction is the same – but we are going to deliver as a simpler, more focused, and higher value company," a BP spokesperson said.
Bit confused by the discrepancy of these statements. Is this because this is an insider source that has not been officially announced (seems like it), or are they saying "We still plan to cut emissions by 2050... maybe sometime later" (seems less likely).
tw04|1 year ago
The fact they’ve cut all targets for 2030, and cut back all renewable plans tells you there’s no actual plan to hit net zero.
This was a pretty obvious end result when the head of their renewables group resigned in April and instead of replacing her they decided to “shrink the executive group” by exactly one headcount.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/bp-cuts-size-executi...
freefal67|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
netsharc|1 year ago
bawana|1 year ago
taeric|1 year ago
Specifically, in this context, they are still reducing output. Just not as aggressively. Do we have reporting on what this means in real impact terms? Last reporting I have seen, the majority of carbon emissions are from locations that we aren't governing. Such that this is akin to yelling at people for not eating all of their food, because someone somewhere is starving.
lilharddad|1 year ago
[deleted]
denkmoon|1 year ago
saintfire|1 year ago
dang|1 year ago