It’s Monday, May 11, and another oil giant is trying to go carbon-neutral.
Total S.A., one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, vowed last week to bring its emissions to “net-zero” by 2050, joining BP and Shell in setting ambitious climate targets despite economic pressures wrought by coronavirus.
The announcement comes after years of engagement with a shareholder group called Climate Action 100+, which urged the French company to align its business goals with the Paris Agreement and with the European Union’s goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
Like BP and Shell, Total promised zero out the emissions associated with its own business operations by switching to renewable energy and offsetting any remaining emissions. But Total has also gone a step further, vowing that all of its energy products used by customers in Europe will be carbon-neutral by 2050 — and that it will cut the emissions of products used worldwide by 60 percent.
It’s not clear yet how Total plans to radically clean up its business model, but it does have a head start: The company already has stakes in 3 gigawatts of renewable energy and plans to increase it to 25 gigawatts over the next five years.
The Smog
Need-to-know basis
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