Paris Agreement on climate presents both opportunities and challenges for gas By Alex Forbes
The historic climate agreement reached in Paris
The phrase “carbon pricing” appears just once.
last December at the 21st Conference of the
There is no mention at all of “fossil fuels”,
Parties to the UN Framework Convention on
“coal”, “oil” or “natural gas”.
Climate Change (COP 21) was unquestionably a
This has surprised some people in the energy
triumph of diplomacy – for which the French
industry, who appear to have been expecting
hosts deserved the acclaim they received. No
specifics on the phase-out of fossil fuels, the
one who attended the talks at the Le Bourget
accelerated implementation of zero-carbon
airfield in the northern suburbs of the City of
energy sources such as renewable and nuclear
Light will forget the intensity of the event, nor
power, and the adoption of carbon pricing
the jubilation that erupted when the gavel
schemes like cap-and-trade mechanisms and
finally came down. Now, as the 195 countries
straightforward taxes. But such specifics were
that are signatories grapple with ratification and
never on the table.
implementation, what are the Paris Agreement’s
The great strength of the outcome of
implications for the energy industry in general
COP 21, in terms of the mitigation of climate
and the natural gas industry in particular?
change, was that the negotiators were able to
A striking aspect of the Paris Agreement on
agree a single, unambiguous target: to limit
climate change – considering how keenly it was
anthropogenic climate change to “well below
anticipated by the energy industry – is that the
2°C above pre-industrial levels”.
16,504-word text barely mentions energy. The word “energy” itself appears just three times.
According to the now widely – though still not universally – accepted science behind
v From left to right: Laurence Tubiana, COP 21 Presidency; UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres; UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; COP 21 President Laurent Fabius, Foreign Minister, France; and French President François Hollande celebrate the historic agreement reached in Paris.
100 P a r i s A g r e e m e n t o n c l i m a t e p r e s e n t s b o t h o p p o r t u n i t i e s a n d c h a l l e n g e s f o r g a s
