Yemisi Izuora
As climate change menace continues to dominate international discourse, the Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis is lending his voice to the need for stakeholders in the environment to take action to save the continents environment.
The Vatican will host executives of the world’s top oil companies for a conference this week on climate change and the transition away from fossil fuels, a Vatican source said at the weekend.
Pope Francis who wrote a major document on protection of the environment from global warming in 2015, is expected to address the group on the last day of the June 8-9 conference.
The conference, organised by Notre Dame University in the United States, is expected to be attended by the heads or senior executives of companies including ExxonMobil, Eni, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Pemex, the source said.
The chief executive officers of BP and Norway’s Equinor will attend the event, the two companies confirmed.
The oil and gas industry has come under increasing pressure from investors and activists to play a bigger role in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases in order to meet goals set out in a 2015 climate agreement signed in Paris.
Companies are betting on increased demand for gas, the least polluting fossil fuel and to a lesser extent on renewable power such as wind and solar to meet global targets of net zero emissions by the end of the century.
The conference, titled “Energy Transition and Care for Our Common Home”, will be held in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a 16th century villa in the Vatican gardens known as the Casina Pio IV.
In the 2015 encyclical, called “Laudato Si (Praise Be), On the Care of Our Common Home”, Francis, the first Pope from a developing nation, advocated a change of lifestyle in rich countries steeped in a “throwaway” consumer culture and an end to an “obstructionist attitudes” that sometimes put profit before the common good.
In several passages in the six-chapter encyclical, Francis confronted head-on both climate change doubters and those who say it is not man-made.
He said there was a “very solid scientific consensus” that the planet was warming and that people had to “combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it” because greenhouse gases were “released mainly as a result of human activity.”
Francis called for policies to drastically reduce polluting gases, saying technology based on fossil fuels “needs to be progressively replaced without delay” and sources of renewable energy developed.
One of the key architects of the pope’s encyclical, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s department on promoting human development and a firm backer of the need to stem global warming, will address the group, the source said.
Last year Francis, who strongly supported the Paris agreement on climate change, implicitly criticised the United States for pulling out of the accord.
The chancellor of the academy where the conference will be held, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, called the U.S. withdrawal a “huge slap in the face” for the Vatican.
Meanwhile, Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), has restated its commitment to sound environmental management as it called for a collaborative efforts towards environmental sustainability.
The oil major noted that management of waste is an integral part of its operations and this is documented by project and operations focused waste management plans.
Speaking ahead of this years World Environmental Day, (WED),celebration, Chairman/
According to Ewing, CNL has put in place company wide operational excellence management systems that delivers industry leading performance in process safety, personal safety and health, environment, reliability and efficiency.
Chevron he said, has a record of responsible environmental stewardship everywhere it operates and has also established enduring partnerships with governments, non governmental organizations, business organizations and communities.
He further disclosed that the company effectively manages its third party waste handling contractors towards ensuring management of waste from cradle to grave (generation, storage, transportation and disposal), adding that over 50 years, CNL has remained an active agent of sustainable development and strong advocate of partnerships in support of the environment.
Chevron in line with this responsibility has been supporting and sponsoring various programmes aimed at preserving the environment. These partnerships and efforts have been recognized and rewarded within and outside the country,” he remarked.
The company’s environmental stewardship process lays the foundation for sound environmental management through inclusion of the environment in decision making from the identification, assessment and management of environmental risks from project inception to operations and through decommissioning.
It also recognizes the importance of minimizing our footprints and conserving biodiversity, while it strives continually to achieve world class environmental excellence by assessing and reducing its footprints and potential impacts from its operations on the environment.
Chevron Nigeria’s commitment to preserving the environment has left enduring landmarks in the landscape, including the Lekki Conservation Centre (LCC), a centre of excellence in environmental research and education reserved as a sanctuary for the rich flora and fauna of the Lekki Peninsula.
This 78-hectare facility is the only one of such facilities in the Lagos area and was established by CNL in partnership with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) in 1992. The support for the LCC best connects Chevron’s activities to the theme of the WED 2018.The NCF is Nigeria’s foremost non-governmental organization dedicated to environmental conservation and an affiliate of the World-Wide Fund for Nature.
In 2005, Chevron established a yearly postgraduate research scholarship for PhD students in environment and conservation. In addition, Chevron hosts the annual S. L. Edu Memorial Lecture to promote environmental management awareness.
Esimaje Brikinn, CNL’s General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs notes that beyond the awards, CNL is ever willing to continue to collaborate with all stakeholders to safeguard the environment. “We are continually working to improve our processes to reduce pollution and waste, conserve natural resources, and reduce potentially negative environmental impacts of our activities and operations,” he remarked.
The World Environment Day (WED), is held annually on June 5 and is the biggest event to celebrate and promote environmental awareness and sustainability across the globe.
Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972, WED aims to raise global awareness and mobilize humans to take positive environmental action to protect nature and the planet earth.
This global event is not only the principal vehicle through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment, but also gives a human perspective to environmental issues, empowers people to become active agents of sustainable development and advocates multi-stakeholder partnerships in support of the environment.
From 1973, when the first WED was held, the event has always been marked with different campaign themes and discussions focusing on environmental stewardship.
“Beat Plastic Pollution”, the theme for World Environment 2018, urges governments, industry, communities and individuals to come together in exploring sustainable alternatives to urgently reduce the production and excessive use of single-use plastic polluting our oceans, damaging marine life and threatening human health. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, every year the world uses 500 billion plastic bags; each year, at least 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute.