Pope Francis has put his foot down: Climate change is such a pressing issue that science and religion must come together for the good of all people. He’s starting with a plea for oil executives to have a come-to-Jesus moment when it comes to environmentalism.
Today, Francis spoke at the second day of an energy
summit, called “Energy Transition and Care for Our Common Home,” held at the
Vatican in Rome, Italy. It’s a commendable effort, no doubt. However, many of
the world’s biggest oil producers are in countries where the Pope doesn’t have
much sway—especially those in Hindu, Muslim, Eastern-Orthodox, Buddhist, or
secular countries.
Here’s a guest list of the top 15 oil and gas outfits
listed in Forbes’ Global 2,000 rankings of the largest publicly traded
companies in the world, in descending order of company size. Those who have not
yet confirmed to the media as to whether or not they sent a representative to
Francis’s climate klatsch are crossed off.
- Royal Dutch
Shell
- ExxonMobil
- Chevron
- Total
- Sinopec
- PetroChina
- BP
- Gazprom
- Rosneft
- Reliance
Industries
- Equinor
- Eni
- LukOil
- Phillips 66
- PTT PCL
Data for government-owned and privately held fossil
fuel companies are harder to come by. This proposed guest list of 13 fossil
fuel firms is based on the Financial Times’ 2006 analysis of the top 150
non-publicly listed companies—outdated, but likely still useful for Francis’
purposes:
- Saudi
Aramco
- Pemex
- Petróleos
de Venezuela SA
- Kuwait
Petroleum Corporation
- Petroliam
Nasional Berhad (Petronas)
- Sonatrach
- National
Iranian Oil Company
- Pertamina
- Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation
- Abu Dhabi
National Oil Company
- Iraq
National Oil Company
- Libya
National Oil Company
- Qatar
Petroleum
(Quartz has reached out to the companies listed and
will update this article if there are any additional confirmations.)
There were other attendees, of course. Larry Fink, CEO
of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and Ernest Moniz, a former US
energy secretary, also joined in.
“This is a challenge of epochal proportions,” the Pope
told oil execs this morning. He commended efforts that oil and gas companies
have made to reduce emissions and their overall carbon footprint in recent
years, but warned that they must do much more in order to “turn the corner in
time” to limit global warming.
To date, most climate action taken by fossil-fuel
companies has been driven by profits: Shareholders want them to confront the
reality that their assets are threatened by
climate change, and to take responsibility for all of their
emissions.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Jerry Taylor, president of the DC-based libertarian
think-tank Niskanen Center, said he expects the oil executives to tell the pope
they’re open to more rigorous regulatory climate-change action, such as a
carbon tax. But, he added, “what is needed is for these oil majors to tell
Republican lawmakers of their concern and support for action, not the pope. And
this they have not done in any focused, sustained, or meaningful way.” Perhaps
the pope can push them to do so by appealing to their best moral selves.
Or not. As the New York Times reported, on June 7, Equinor, the Norwegian oil giant formerly
called Statoil, published a report saying the world needs to speed up the
transition to renewable energy if we want to meet the Paris agreement targets.
The same day, the company put a bid out for stakes in deepwater oil drilling
fields off the coast of Brazil.