Equinor aims for 40 per cent emissions cut by 2030
Norway’s state-owned oil company Equinor has announced plans to slash fossil fuel emissions by 40 per cent by 2030, with aims to get close to net zero by 2050.
To achieve its 2030 target the firm will have to make annual cuts of more than 5m tonnes of emissions, roughly 10 per cent of the country’s total.
Read more: Equinor forecast steady despite gas sales fall
In order to do so Equinor plans to invest around $5.7bn (£4.3bn), which will be used to replace gas turbines with renewable energy and major installations, including offshore wind turbines and hydroelectric power.
Eldar Saetre, Equinor’s chief executive, said: “Equinor supports the Paris agreement and a net zero target for society.
“We have already brought CO2-emissions in the production process down to industry leading levels. We are now launching an unprecedented set of ambitions for forceful industrial action and substantial absolute emission reductions in Norway, aiming towards near zero in 2050.
“The new climate ambitions will strengthen future competitiveness and value creation for Equinor, while supporting industrial developments in Norway.”
Norway is heavily dependent on oil and gas, which produce roughly half of its export revenue.
The Scandinavian country has used the proceeds from these sales to build the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, worth over $1 trillion.
Equinor said that it expects Norway’s oil output to half by 2050, although some campaigners have said this will not be sufficient to meet global targets.
“Too little, too late. In 2050 there can’t be any oil extraction from Norway’s continental shelf,” tweeted Andreas Radoey, a board member at NGO Nature and Youth.
Today it was also reported that Equinor would take a stake in Kobold Metals, a start-up backed by Bill Gates.
Sources told the Financial Times that the Norwegian firm would have a 10 per cent stake in the firm, which uses machine learning to locate oil and gas deposits.
Read more: Equinor to link management’s pay to climate targets
The San Francisco based company, which was founded in 2018, is trying to create a “Google Maps” of the earth’s crust using large data sets.
The firm is backed by Silicon Valley venture capital firms Andressen Horowitz and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.