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Thursday, 4 May 2006
Global Warming, Consequences and the Responsibilities of Oil Companies: Opportunities for the Offshore Industry
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Louis Heuze, Senior Vice President, Total Exploration and Production |
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Philippe Jean-Baptiste, Research Director, Climate Control Research Center |
The 25 billion metric tons of CO2 released by our industry annually into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning are causing a rapid increase in its atmospheric concentration. It contributes to our planet warming far beyond the natural oscillation of the climate relevant to the past 400,000 years studied with the help of Antarctica ice cores.
Fossil fuels will continue to meet a significant share of world primary energy demand: CO2 release is expected to be twice its current level by 2050. To limit its consequences, it is the responsibility of our industry to take the necessary measures to stabilize and preferably decrease these emissions.
This presentation discusses the various solutions being researched or implemented to reduce CO2 emission of fossil fuels, including a more energy efficient industry, flaring reduction, natural gas utilization, CO2 capture and sequestration.
Speaker Profiles
Louis Heuze serves as senior vice president for Health, Safety, Security, Environnement and Sustainable Development for Total Exploration and Production Branch, a position he has held since November 2004. He joined Total Exploration and Production in 1973 and has held various positions, with most of his career in the fields of drilling, production and operations management in several affiliates with onshore or offshore activity such as the UK, Norway, Tunisia, Canada, Algeria, Indonesia, Kenya, and Congo where he was general manager from 2000 to 2004.
Dr. Philippe Jean-Baptiste, a climate scientist, is currently leading a research group in isotope geochemistry and environmental sciences at the Climate Control research Center. For more than 20 years, he has conducted research at the interface of climatology, oceanography and geology and has published more than 100 scientific papers. In 1997, he joined the Climate Science Laboratory in Paris, a joint research unit between CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique), the two main government owned research agencies in France and served as Director of the Climate Science Program at CEA. He is a member of the European Science Foundation board for Life and Environmental Sciences. Jean-Baptiste holds a degree in engineering from the Ecole Centrale ( Paris) and a PhD in physics from the University of Paris.
