A big week in the climate debate

It’s another big week with the UN climate change conference taking place in Madrid. BP colleagues are contributing expertise in two areas that are crucial to getting the world to net zero. One is managing methane emissions (which I’ve spoken about before on here). And the other is using natural climate solutions, such as reforestation or protection of wetlands, to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and lock it away.

Away from Madrid, we’ve also been busy, with a number of developments in just the last seven days.

We completed the formation of our new biofuels joint venture in Brazil. BP Bunge Bioenergia is now the second-largest business of its kind producing ethanol from sugarcane. As well as producing one of the most carbon-efficient biofuels available, the mills also generate electricity from the crushed sugarcane, providing low carbon power into the national grid.

We’ve also announced that we are taking our share in Lightsource BP up to 50%, with the partnership having gotten off to a flying start since we joined forces two years ago this month.  

And in a fascinating development for solar power generation, Lightsource BP has just demonstrated how solar projects can have an emissions-saving impact even after the sun has gone down. It does that by using the solar plant’s equipment, at night, to help improve the efficiency of electricity transmission in the national grid.

In the same week we’ve also agreed to help Amazon’s Web Services operation meet a goal to run its datacentres on 100% renewable power.

There’s certainly been a lot happening, but the world needs to do much more to get onto a sustainable path. You’ll hear more from BP soon about further plans to make energy cleaner and better.