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SUMMARY:EESS talk on "The role of fossil fuels and offsets in achieving ne
 t-zero emissions in the oil and gas industry A comparison of BP\, Shell\, 
 Chevron and ExxonMobil"
DTSTART:20230307T121500
DTEND:20230307T131500
DTSTAMP:20260916T203830Z
UID:565be96b182e0488fad5eefb9e52fd45e606c488bacbe7490e57faaa
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Gregory Trencher\, associate professor\, University of Kyo
 to (JP).\nAbstract:\nNumerous oil majors have pledged to reach net-zero em
 issions by 2050 and to transition business models to clean energy. Faced w
 ith increasing pressures to pursue this by reducing fossil-fuel production
 \, carbon offsetting has gained traction as an attractive\, drop-in soluti
 on for decarbonisation. With the major’s offsetting behaviour yet to be 
 examined in the existent literature\, scholars to date have also tended to
  focus on renewables rather than their strategies related to fossil-fuel p
 roduction and sales. This talk seeks to fill this gap\, by examining the t
 ransition strategies of the world’s four largest publicly-traded majors:
  BP\, Shell\, Chevron and ExxonMobil. I assess whether announced pathways 
 to net-zero reflect a transformative shift from fossil fuels while investi
 gating the role and quality of offsets used in decarbonisation strategies.
  Using a novel and comprehensive dataset compiled from company and third-p
 arty documents in addition to carbon offset registries\, I find that no ma
 jor’s decarbonisation pathway yet encompasses a fundamental business-mod
 el transformation away from fossil-fuels. This is evidenced by the lack of
  strategic plans to curb the production and sales of hydrocarbons and by a
  reliance on offsets to reach net-zero goals and to reduce the climate imp
 act of energy products. I find that offsetting activities offer limited cl
 imate benefits\, since they mostly involve historical emissions-avoidance 
 projects that do not support the physical removal of atmospheric carbon em
 issions in the present. These findings challenge the appropriateness of cl
 aims about ‘carbon-neutral’ hydrocarbons\, showing how net-zero strate
 gies omit the urgent task of curbing the supply of fossil fuels to the glo
 bal market.\n\nShort biography:\nGregory Trencher is an Associate Professo
 r at the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies\, Kyoto Universit
 y. He obtained a PhD in Sustainability Science from the University of Toky
 o and previously held posts at Clark University (USA) and Tohoku Universit
 y (Japan). His research specializes in 1) policies and processes that driv
 e or hamper the transition to sustainable energy and mobility systems as w
 ell as cities\, 2) the phase-out of environmentally unsustainable substanc
 es\, technologies and processes\, 3) decarbonization strategies in fossil 
 fuel-centric industries. He serves on the editorial board for the journal 
 Energy Research & Social Science as well as Frontiers in Sustainable Citie
 s. He has published more than 35 publications in leading journals like PLO
 S One\, Energy Policy\, Environmental Research Letters\, Energy Research a
 nd Social Science\, Global Environmental Change\, and Renewable and Sustai
 nable Energy Reviews.\n 
LOCATION:GC B1 10 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==GC%20B1%2010 https://epfl.zo
 om.us/j/69011077410
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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