14 DAY TRIAL // In response to the emission reduction plans announced recently by the United States, the CEO of the large oil company Chevron Corp. said that they might be too ambitious. Plans are to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than 80 percent until 2050, but the manager argued that much of the existing energy infrastructure would have to be replaced in order for that objective to come within reach. This would imply additional investments at a time of crisis, Reuters quotes him as saying.
He underlined the fact that, if every vehicle in the United States would be emission-free by that time, the pollution levels would only decrease by about 34 percent. Additionally, a completely carbon-free energy industry would only decrease emissions by 40 percent, he added in a televised debate on Wednesday. “We'll be lucky if we can get 20 percent or 25 percent by 2050. I hope I'm wrong about it, but I'm just looking at capital stock turnover,” Chevron CEO David O'Reilly said during a discussion he had with Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. The group is a large environmental organization.
Pope argued, in return, that change was possible through the use of technology, and explained that California was the best example that things could, indeed, turn out for the better. The state reduced its energy consumption levels by more than 50 percent between 1973 and 2003, in 50 years. Therefore, Pope pinpointed, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to believe that, if Americans put their minds to it, they could manage to accommodate the current goals as well.
O'Reilly was slammed when he urged Pope to make the government move faster on issues related to climate change and global warming. “It would help if you would get out of the way,” Pope replied, to the applauses of the audience. Despite tense moments in the discussion, the two promised to meet privately and discuss options of lobbying together in Washington for replacing oil in power plants with natural gas, a move both men agreed would have the most significant and fastest impact on pollution levels in the United States and worldwide.