--- title: How Fossil Fuel Companies Can Fight Climate Change in 2022 description: In 2022, fossil-fuel producers must play an even bigger role in the global effort to make the energy transition a reality, writes Lord John Browne of BeyondNetZero. canonical: https://time.com/6132547/fossil-fuel-companies-climate-change/ author: John Browne article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-01-04T19:38:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:47.421Z article:section: Ideas og:title: 3 Ways the Fossil Fuel Industry Can Fight Climate Change in 2022 og:description: A former fossil-fuel executive on what producers must do this year to survive in a net-zero future og:url: https://time.com/6132547/fossil-fuel-companies-climate-change/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4008c308bb7ba47/698a213416d8848ae2c3a33d/fossil-fuel-companiesRED.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Climate France og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 3 Ways the Fossil Fuel Industry Can Fight Climate Change in 2022 twitter:description: A former fossil-fuel executive on what producers must do this year to survive in a net-zero future twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4008c308bb7ba47/698a213416d8848ae2c3a33d/fossil-fuel-companiesRED.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Fossil Fuel Companies Say They Want to Help Fight Climate Change. Here's What They Should Do > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: Generation Now: The Fight for Climate Justice [Watch (HLS stream): Generation Now: The Fight for Climate Justice](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CIHrS8Mv.m3u8) (14:03)  _Published 2021-11-05. Today’s young people are coming of age just as the stable climate that has allowed previous generations to thrive on our planet begins to visibly break down—and just before our last chance to stop it falls out of reach._ by [John Browne](https://time.com/author/john-browne/) ## John Browne Jan 4, 2022 7:38 PM UTC  Smoke rises from the Feyzin Total refinery chimneys, outside Lyon, central France, Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. Smoke rises from the Feyzin Total refinery chimneys, outside Lyon, central France, Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. Laurent Cipriani—AP by [John Browne](https://time.com/author/john-browne/) ## John Browne Jan 4, 2022 7:38 PM UTC The last year has been critical in the global fight against climate change. I attended [COP26](https://time.com/6120266/cop26-takeaways/) and believe that the [Glasgow Climate Pact](https://time.com/6117499/cop26-final-agreement/), which enshrines the collective commitments that aim to limit global temperature increases to well below 2°C, could be a transformative step on the [road to net zero](https://time.com/6102914/net-zero-energy-emissions/). In 2022, we will learn more about what actions will be taken because of those commitments. One sector whose actions will be decisive, but was conspicuously absent from formal proceedings at COP26, is the fossil-fuel industry. I have been arguing for almost 30 years that [fossil-fuel producers have to be part of the global effort](https://time.com/5766188/shell-oil-companies-fossil-fuels-climate-change/) to make the energy transition a reality, because they produce more than 80% of our energy today and will continue to produce the large majority for decades to come. Some of these companies have made climate commitments, set targets and developed plans to deliver on those targets. But there is much more to do. First, companies need to be bolder in separating low- and zero-carbon activity from their fossil-fuels business. The former is rapidly growing, less capital intensive and valued at a premium by investors, whereas the business of hydrocarbons is capital intensive, unloved by the market and in decline. But if companies take steps to separate these very different types of activity into two corporate entities, investors can allocate their capital more efficiently and the true value of the low-carbon businesses embedded within large hydrocarbon producers will become clearer. Companies such as ENI took steps to do just this over the past year; I hope that 2022 will be the year in which the pace accelerates. **_Read More:_**[_Did We Just Blow Our Last, Best Chance to Fight Climate Change?_](https://time.com/6130470/climate-change-2021-build-back-better/) Second, it is time to face the reality that our energy system will continue to be powered by hydrocarbons for many years. This means taking steps to decarbonize the use of hydrocarbons by deploying carbon capture, storage and use technologies at scale, and by getting serious about the detection and monitoring of methane leaks, which have more than 80 times the global-warming potential of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. I believe oil and gas producers are well placed to adopt and deploy these technologies across their global operations, and it is time for them to do so because investors, consumers and regulators are demanding it. Third, fossil-fuel companies should embrace the work of the [Science-Based Target initiative](https://sciencebasedtargets.org/), a partnership between the Carbon Disclosure Project, the United Nations Global Compact, the World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature, which helps companies set emission-reduction targets in line with climate science and global agreements. Science-based targets are typically set sector by sector and take into account the pace at which a particular company can be expected to reduce its emissions. They are an independent way to track an organization’s progress toward net zero, and they are increasingly recognized as the gold standard in this area. By the end of 2022, all fossil-fuel companies should support the work of the Science-Based Target initiative as it seeks to develop net-zero pathways for hydrocarbon producers to follow. This will help the sector make real progress and enhance its credibility. **_Read More:_**[_Countries and Corporations Are Getting Cold Feet About Mining the Seabed For Minerals Essential to the Green Energy Transformation_](https://time.com/6128351/seabed-mining-on-hold/) The clock is ticking in the global fight against climate change, and urgent action is needed. We should not lose sight of the overall objective of this work – we are in the pursuit of reducing emissions to allow the environment to heal and sustain itself. Ultimately, we are working to protect and preserve humanity whose very existence relies on the health of the planet. The proactive cooperation of fossil-fuel companies could be game-changing. A great deal can be achieved in 12 months, and the work should start in earnest. _Note: This is an opinion piece and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of BeyondNetZero, General Atlantic or its members._ ## Transcript [Namrata Iyer]: I think some of the biggest challenges my generation faces is convincing the previous generations about why it's important to talk about what we believe in. [Greta Thunberg]: We can't choose between us young people saying to adults you must behave but we can't wait for us to become the ones in charge because we don't have time for that. [Timothée Chalamet]: Your youth does not have to work against you by way of experience, your youth can be a virtue by way of what you ethically and earnestly expect of the world. [Billie Eilish]: People can be so selfish about the environment and their experience versus the globe and literally our lifespan. [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]: The America we grew up in is like nothing like the America our parents or grandparents grew up in. [Nyke Slawik]: When you have young people who are confronted with not having a future at all of course this is going to radicalize a whole generation. This is a question of survival basically. [John Kerry]: I don't doubt that we will get to a net zero carbon economy. Will we get there fast enough to heed the science and avoid the worst consequences? That's the battle. That's what we're trying to do with Glasgow. [Thunberg]: What do we want? [Audience]: Climate justice. [Thunberg]: When do we want it? [Audience]: Now. [Thunberg]: What do we want? [Audience]: Climate justice. [Thunberg]: When do we want it? [Audience]: Now. [Thunberg]: Thank you. [Justin Worland]: This generation has reframed the way we talk and think about climate to make it an issue of intergenerational justice. The question is will this anger turn into action? Will leaders who have been listening actually take the message to heart and do something about it? [Kerry]: Our diplomacy is guided by what the scientists are telling us we must achieve. Three years ago they had a report in 2018 the IPCC gave us 12 years within which to make the critical decisions to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. [Hoesung Lee]: Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is not impossible but will require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society. [Worland]: It was alarming in its the seriousness with which it portrayed the consequences of climate change. We're talking about hundreds of millions of people migrating. We're talking about the possibility of countries disappearing in their entirety. We're talking about a world that is totally transformed. Already 85 percent of the world's population has been affected by human-caused climate change. [Jim Skea]: The message is over to governments at this stage. We've told you what you—the scientific facts, the evidence, the costs. It is up to the governments now to decide what to do with it. [Ciara Nugent]: We've had loads and loads of reports about climate change over the last couple of decades and the massive threat to our planet but despite all of the science there are still people who are skeptical about how much of a big deal it really is. And I think for those people it's much harder to dismiss young people, normal school kids because they're part of their communities, they're part of their families often. [Nyke Slawik]: What we need is politicians who implement the policies in their home countries and that's—that's what has not been happening in the last years. And so now young people are saying why go to school? Why go to university? Why start planning a family? Why buy a house when I don't even know that in 50 years time or 70 years time I will still have a future, because right now that's at stake. [Ocasio-Cortez]: If we do nothing this is what's going to happen: sea levels are going rise, crops are going to die out, there will be mass starvation. There's going to be all of these things that are going to happen and kids see that, they internalize it. [Charlotte Alter]: Researchers have found that young voters form their lifelong political attitudes in response to the events of their early adulthood, mostly late teens into the late 20s. And for millennials and gen z that period of time has been defined by climate catastrophe. [Christian Hidalgo]: I'm from Bakersfield, California, central valley. Earlier today I've been getting snapchats from all of my friends talking about how orange the sky is because of the wildfire surrounding us. The closest wildfire is probably not even 60 miles away but we have horrible air quality like we're—I'm in the middle of the valley and it just it really strongly affects us and that's what—that's what's drawn me to climate activism. [Isabella Guariniello]: This is my first strike ever. I watched a bunch of like sad penguin videos on YouTube and I started to get really sad when I learned about the effects of animals and like how much earth that we're actually losing. It's hard not to get discouraged when you're constantly learning about what people before you did wrong. [Sassy Fernandez]: Like I remember being in elementary school and watching Al Gore's documentary about climate change and the effects that we could be seeing within the next 10, 15 years and so far he's been pretty right about everything that he said in his documentary. I totally forgot what it was called but shout outs to my science teacher. [Thunberg]: We are being betrayed by those in power and they are failing us but we will not back down. And if you feel threatened by that then I have some very bad news for you. We will not be silenced because we are the change and change is coming whether you like it or not. We need to work together intergenerational of course that is the only way and we need to—everyone needs to participate and help out in the way we can. So I'm doing what I can. I'm trying to use my voice to spread awareness and to—to put pressure on those in power. [Alter]: When TIME put Greta on the cover in 2019 she had just gone from being a school girl protesting alone outside of Swedish parliament to being the leader of a global climate movement. That year her activism inspired four million people to join the global climate strike in 2019 which was at that point the largest climate movement in world history. [Worland]: Across the world with very few exceptions there are examples of people who have been inspired by her and have led—who've taken up the mantle the Fridays for Future movement in countries across the world. [Thunberg]: I'm not a leader or the face of the climate movement, I'm just one of many faces. [Vanessa Nakate]: There are far too little evidence of the 100 billion dollars per year that was promised to help climate vulnerable countries to meet these challenges. In fact, those funds were promised to arrive by 2020 and we are still waiting. [Nugent]: Vanessa Nakate, a Ugandan climate activist, is one of many people who have been working to remind us that climate action is going to be expensive and many countries who are most vulnerable to climate change can't afford to pay for it alone. [Nakate]: Historically Africa is responsible for only three percent of global emissions and yet some Africans are already suffering some of the worst and brutal impacts of climate change, so to me climate justice doesn't just have to be about reducing greenhouse gas emissions it goes beyond the primary disasters that we see. It is what happens in the aftermath of those disasters, what happens to families, what happens to individuals, what happens to communities. [Worland]: You think about the fact that the U.S. has emitted a quarter of emissions historically. Africa has emitted three percent of emissions historically and the U.S. is able to isolate itself, to pay for adaptation, to pay for the costs in a way that developing countries in sub-saharan Africa and across the globe just can't. And so climate change is a justice issue on many different levels. [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: We we have to bear in mind that whether you're rich or poor, a rich country or poor country, there are some things you just cannot do on your own. You can't deliver on this pandemic on your own, you cannot deliver on climate change on your own. [Nakate]: So what we really want is a future that is healthy, that is sustainable, that is clean, that is livable and equitable for all of us. [Nugent]: Some of the activists that I speak to are realizing they can't wait for the older generation to take action so they're trying to get elected to governments themselves. In Germany, the Green Party has really been in the ascendancy. In September they've almost doubled their number of seats in parliament and one of the 118 lawmakers they now have is Nyke Slawik. She's a 27 year old German politician who was elected in September to the Bundestag and she has been involved in climate activism for almost 12 years and now she has political power to make a difference. [Slawik]: The time of just implementing small changes has passed and this is a reality we as younger politicians are bringing with us to the parliament now but of course there's lots of older colleagues who have not quite grasped this yet, and I think this is why we might be more determined to not go for the small compromises, to be a bit more rebellious about these things. The last German government has decided to exit coal in 2038 which is still too late way too late but now we even have the chance to accelerate energy transition from coal to renewables way quicker and that's a major achievement of the youth climate movement. [Alter]: In the United States young voters across the political spectrum understand that climate change is a major issue that needs to be addressed, they just disagree on how best to do it. So even younger Republicans, Republicans under 40, they understand that climate change is happening, they understand that something has to be done about it, they just don't agree with their more progressive peers about the scale and scope of what that intervention needs to be. So this is a big shift from a couple generations ago when you had one side insisting that climate change was a problem and the other side basically denying that it was happening at all. [Worland]: When TIME spoke to Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, he spoke about how the youth movement had made him want to do better. When I talked to the U.N. Secretary General he talked about how he was trying to bring youth into the climate discussion because it had enthused him and he thought it would help change the conversation. Talking to members of Congress about how inspirational Greta was really made clear to me that she was changing the conversation. [Nugent]: In my reporting activists are telling me that COP 26 is a crucial moment to find out if politicians are really listening to them and really taking action or if they're just saying they're listening and delaying action. [Nakate]: Leaders keep praising young people for standing up and protesting but saving the world needs action, it needs decisions from the leaders, decisions that prioritize the lives of the people and the planet, and that is not something that we are doing. The words of the leaders are not matching up with their actions. [Thunberg]: Words. Words that sound great but so far has led to no action. Our hopes and dreams drown in their empty words and promises. Of course we need constructive dialogue but they've now had 30 years of blah blah blah and where has that led us? [Jane Goodall]: I'm about to leave the world and leave it behind me with all the mess whereas young people have to grow up into it. That's why they need every bit of help they can. And if, you know, if they succumb to the doom and gloom ,which many have, then they lose hope. If you lose hope that's the end, because if you don't hope that there's a way out, if you don't hope that your actions can make a difference then you sink into apathy and do nothing. So hope is absolutely crucial if we're to get through this. [Singing]: We're going to strike because our waters are rising. We're going to strike because our people are dying. We're going to strike for life and everything we love. We're going to strike for you, will you strike for us? We're going to strike for you, will you strike for us? We're going to strike because our waters are rising. We're going to strike because our people are dying. We're going to strike for life and everything we love. We're going to strike for you, will you strike for us? We're going to strike for you, will you strike for us? Beautiful. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6132547/fossil-fuel-companies-climate-change/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6132547/fossil-fuel-companies-climate-change/"},"headline":"Fossil Fuel Companies Say They Want to Help Fight Climate Change. 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