Week in Oil & Gas: Copenhagen Gets A Boost and Salazar's Smackdown

The world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen with at least some commitment to reduce emissions. The announcements from the U.S. and China last week — while less ambitious than some had hoped for — did provide some momentum leading into the climate summit in December.

The U.S. kicked it all off last week with President Obama’s commitment to attend the international climate talks in Copenhagen. The brief visit is more symbolic than anything. Although he is not going to the summit empty-handed. Obama also announced he is prepared to offer a U.S. emissions reduction targetin the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020 and ultimately in line with the final U.S. energy and climate legislation, according to a White House statement released Wednesday.

China announced the following day, a proposal to reduce its carbon emissions per unit of industrial output — also called carbon intensity — and said it would attend the climate summit.

At first glance, China’s target to curb — not cut — its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels, seems like a big commitment. But as FT’s Energy Source noted Monday, China’s carbon intensity is “notoriously high.” The developing nation emitted 2.85 tons of CO2 for every $1,000 of GDP, compared to 0.54 tons in the United States.

In short, the reduction target is big, but it’s not hefty enough to make a dent. On the contrary, emissions will still rise in spite of the effort.  The McKinsey study China’s Green Revolution, which was referred to in both the FT and Charles McElwee’s China Environmental Law blog, estimates if China continues to grow at an annual GDP growth rate of 7.8 percent:

• AND continues to meet aggressive energy intensity reduction goals;
• AND installs all the renewable energy called for in its medium and long-term plan;
• AND achieves a 4.8 percent annual growth rate in carbon efficiency …

then it will more than double its 2005 carbon emissions by 2030.

Still, even if China’s emissions reduction commitment doesn’t quite stack up — the country is at least throwing something on the table.

The U.S. delegation attending the summit also will have — for the first time — a U.S. Center at the conference, according to the White House. Among the cabinet members scheduled to speak during the two-week talks is Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who recently unleashed a firestorm of counter-criticism directed at the oil and gas industry.

Salazar, while on a call with reporters to discuss plans to auction oil and gas leases next year, slammed industry trade groups of spreading “untruths” about the recently retooled lease program.

The Interior Department scheduled 38 oil and natural gas leases sales for U.S. public lands in 2010, including a sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, according to last week’s announcement by Salazar. Industry trade groups have charged the Interior Department with slowing down the program and criticized the continued deferment of about 77 Utah leases that were put on hold in February.

Salazar’s cautious, slow approach to oil shale development did garner approval from some farmers over the weekend. The Rocky Mountain Farmers Union bought newspaper ads in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico thanking Salazar.

Perhaps, Salazar will draw from this recent experience when he speaks at the upcoming international climate summit in Copenhagen. His topic, which is scheduled for Dec. 10 according to the White house, on the role of public lands in clean energy production and carbon capture, is a timely one.

Other recent BNET Energy coverage includes:

• Tale of Two Producers: Pacific Ethanol Prepares to Restart Plant, GNH Files for Bankruptcy
• Copenhagen Countdown: Obama Heading to Climate Talks Armed with U.S. Emissions Target
• Climategate Refuses to Stay Under the Carpet
• Halliburton Profit to Suffer as Mexico’s Pemex Pulls Back
• The Kidney Stone-Climate Bill Connection