Several major countries said at the UN Climate Change Summit (COP28) in Dubai that they were moving to use carbon "capture" or "storage" technologies, which were considered realistic solutions to confront climate change.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged it would stop building new coal power plants that do not have emission reduction measures in place.
"In line with its pathway to net-zero, Japan will end new construction of domestic unabated coal power plants while securing a stable energy supply," Kishida said.
- Emission reduction
Japan, which relies heavily on importing coal and other traditional fuels, seeks to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
Kishida stated that Japan has already reduced emissions by 20 percent and is progressing towards lowering the target of 46 percent by 2030 compared to 2013.
To reduce emissions, Japan seeks to use hydrogen and ammonia to produce energy alongside gas and coal in existing power plants, but experts have a different view.
Japan relies heavily on imported traditional fuels, especially natural gas, which represents about 40 percent of its electricity generation, and coal, which represents about 30 percent.
- ExxonMobil rejects IEA's criticism
ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods rejected the International Energy Agency's (IEA) recent claim that using wide-scale carbon capture to fight climate change was an implausible "illusion," saying the same could be said about electric vehicles and solar energy.
Woods told Reuters on the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit that there is "no solution set out there today that is at the scale to solve the problem."
"So, you could say that about carbon capture today, you could say that about electric vehicles, about wind, about solar. I think that criticism is legitimate for anything we're trying to do, to start with," he said.
Woods' appearance marked the first time a CEO of fossil fuel giant Exxon has attended one of the annual UN-sponsored climate summits and reflected a growing effort among oil and gas companies worldwide to recast themselves as part of the solution to global warming, as opposed to a cause.
Exxon has announced $17 billion of investment in its low-carbon business, which includes carbon capture, and has argued that greenhouse gas emissions are the problem causing climate change, not the fossil fuels themselves.
Woods said he believed oil and gas would play an "important role" in the world through 2050 but declined to estimate demand levels.
As part of Exxon's low carbon strategy, it announced in July a $4.9 billion acquisition of Denbury and its 2,100-kilometer carbon dioxide pipeline network, which will be linked to offshore blocks in the Gulf of Mexico where Exxon plans to bury carbon.
So far, Exxon has convinced the largest ammonia maker in the United States, an industrial gas company, and a large steel company to sign long-term contracts for carbon reduction services covering around five million tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Energy and industry produce about 37 billion tons of CO2 globally per year.
Woods declined to provide details of the contracts but said US subsidies in last year's Inflation Reduction Act of up to $85 a ton for carbon capture and sequestration would make the investments profitable.
"We're essentially helping customers decarbonize and taking advantage of that tax credit," Woods said.
He added that making money from the deals was "probably a few years out."
- US plans to reduce emissions
The US administration revealed final rules to take action against emissions from the US oil and gas industry as part of a global plan to curb emissions contributing to climate change.
US officials announced the rules at the COP28 in Dubai.
The US and other countries participating in the summit are expected to provide details on achieving the pledge made two years ago to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent from 2020 to 2030.
New EPA policies would ban routine natural gas flaring from newly drilled oil wells, require stringent leak monitoring of oil and gas wells and compressors, and establish a third-party verification that they are cracking down on leaks or improper flaring.
The EPA estimates it will stop about 58 million tons of methane from escaping into the atmosphere during that period – the equivalent of taking more than 300 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
