Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s head expects clean energy to make up half of the company’s energy mix “somewhere in the next decade.”
“If we do not make that type of process by the middle of next decade, we have a problem not just as a company but as a society,” Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said in an interview with AXIOS on HBO.
Like its European peers, the Anglo-Dutch major has set itself an “ambition” to become a net-zero emissions energy company by the middle of this century. The feat involves producing less oil, more gas and renewables, as well as using technologies still in their infancy like hydrogen and carbon sequestration. Not everyone is convinced, with the energy giant set to clash with some shareholders on the matter at its annual general meeting later this month.
“If you want to get rid of hydrocarbons in the mix, you have to do something about the use of it, not the production of it,” van Beurden said. Speaking on the challenges of the transition, the 63-year-old Dutchman also said that people want to see results straightaway, but “don’t expect that tomorrow we will stop selling diesel to trucks.”
While van Beurden welcomed the U.S. rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, he questioned other policies. “What I also see is that the government is flirting with popular ideas that are clear, simple, and wrong, which is, ‘Let’s ban the production of oil and gas in our country.’”
Van Beurden has previously criticized U.S. President Joe Biden’s policy to ban drilling on federal land, saying such restrictions will simply result in boosting oil imports. “Popular demand may well push you in the direction, but it is not smart policy.”
“We will focus on the demand side, and then the supply side is a resultant of that,” he said.
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