STOCKHOLM (AP) – Chemistry books say there are three fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas.
Lately you could get the impression that coal is the only one.
As a global agreement to rein in climate-warming carbon emissions draws closer, oil and gas companies are increasingly talking about coal as the problem and describing themselves as a crucial part of the solution, together with renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.
“We stand ready to play our part,” six major European oil and gas companies including Royal Dutch Shell and BP said in a recent letter to U.N. climate officials working on a major climate deal set to be adopted in Paris in December.
As they see it, their part includes gobbling up coal’s market share in power generation. Natural gas plants – many oil companies also produce gas – release about half the CO2 emissions of coal-fired plants and lower levels of air pollution.