A huge tree-planting project the size of the Amazon rainforest would be needed to meet a tougher global warming target, The boss of Shell says. He argued that more renewable energy alone would not be enough.
Temperature limitation would be a major challenge, Ben van Beurden said. The temperature rises to 1.5C (equivalent to a rise of 2.7F), which a landmark report from the UN’s climate science panel has said will be necessary to avoid dangerous warming.
“You can get to 1.5C, but not by just by pulling the same levers a little bit harder, because they are being pulled roughly as fast and and as hard as we are currently imagining. What we think can be done is massive reforestation. Think of another Brazil in terms of rainforest: you can get to 1.5C,” he said to an oil and gas industry audience in London.
“It’s not what some people sometimes think: we’ll just do a little bit more solar, a bit more wind and we’ll get there,” he added.
There is no other option than reforestation in the scenarios outlined this week by the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change, if the world is to restrict warming to 1.5C.
> Shiuly Rina
