The World Petroleum Congress will get underway next week in Madrid, and will include many panels on climate change, carbon trading, and sustainable development. The official theme for the upcoming WPC is “A World in Transition: Delivering Energy for Sustainable Growth,” reflecting the ongoing concerns of the global industry.
I am fortunate to be speaking at the WPC with a distinguished panel on carbon trading issues. I will be speaking on Monetizing Reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Opportunities in Carbon Credit Markets. The other panelists and their topics are as follows: Ignacio Bachiller, CDM Projects Portfolios: the Economics; Pat Concessi, The Benefits and Challenges of Linking GHG Emissions Trading Schemes; Paula Coussy, Implications on the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) of Capture Transport and Geological Storage Projects: Dr. Jagdish P. N. Giri, Economic Modeling to identify Emissions? Reduction Opportunities at Carbon Energy Business During Fossil Energy Lead Time? Aligning the Value Chain of CDM & JI on Long Term Emissions' Trading and Carbon Energy Management in the Asian Context.
The potential for the generation and trading of carbon credits to become a significant part of certain oil and gas development projects is developing and will only increase as the opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas exploration and production as well as transportation are identified and pursued.
Carbon capture and sequestration or storage present significant opportunities. A specific panel on carbon capture and storage will explore these issues at the WPC.
A variety of other projects will address sustainable development and the role of this concept in international oil and gas development.
The trends of ever-growing expectations on oil and gas companies to address climate change, sustainable development , ecosystem and habitat preservations, and other environmental issues presents challenges to these companies. Greenhouse gas reductions and monetizing those reductions in the form of carbon credits may actually prove to be a significant opportunity in the changing global market that is tending to evolve toward a carbon-constrained economy.
