Shell boss acknowledges troubles with fossil fuels

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Ben van Beurden, the chief executive of Shell, has endorsed warnings that the world’s fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned unless some way is found to capture their carbon emissions.”

The story in The Guardian - “Shell boss endorses warnings about fossil fuels and climate change” – continues:

“The oil boss has also predicted that the global energy system will become “zero carbon” by the end of the century, with his group obtaining a “very, very large segment” of its earnings from renewable power.

“And in an admission that the growing opposition to Shell’s controversial search for oil in the Arctic was putting increasing pressure on him, van Beurden admitted he had gone on a “personal journey” to justify the decision to drill.

“The Shell boss said he accepted the general premise contained in independent studies that have concluded that dangerous levels of global warming above 2C will occur unless CO2 is buried or reserves are kept in the ground. “We cannot burn all the hydrocarbon resources we have on the planet in an unmitigated way and not expect to have a CO2 loading in the atmosphere that is often being linked to the 2C scenario,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.