Reducing carbon emissions should be a priority for the industry

The energy sector must take a leading role in tackling carbon emissions – and it needs to act now

In its latest report Mitigation of Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has found that decades of foot-dragging by political leaders has propelled humanity into a critical situation, as global greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions rise faster than ever. The report measures the success – or otherwise – of government efforts to keep the global rise in mean surface temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times. Most climate scientists believe that ecological damage – and the collateral economic damage that it will bring – will become unmanageable if long-term average temperatures rise beyond this internationally agreed target. Yet the r