Chief executives of ten of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies have pledged to lend their support to an "effective" deal to efforts made to fight global warming.
The announcement came as a key summit on fighting climate change, scheduled to be held in the French capital city, Paris, is less than two months away.
According to a report, which appeared on the website of the Independent on Sunday, the ten oil majors are among the world’s biggest producers of fossil fuel, accounting for 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas production.
The chief executives of the companies have announced that they will support an agreement, which aims to limit global warming that is a result of emissions blamed on increasing fossil fuel consumption, to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
In a joint statement, the CEOs of BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, France’s Total, Spain’s Repsol, Norway’s Statoil, Italy’s Eni, Mexico’s Petroelos Mexicanos, India’s Reliance Industries and the UK’s BG Group declared their decision to keep global warming below a level that is considered by many as dangerous.
In order to achieve this goal, the companies have called for coal to be replaced with cleaner burning natural gas and have also offered to reduce methane emissions and flaring from oil and gas operations.
The decision has apparently come at a time when the companies are struggling with a significant fall in oil prices. The decision also highlighted the deep rift that exists between these companies and such American oil firms as Exxon Mobil and Chevron, which decided to stay away from this initiative.
The Greenpeace, however, said the offer made by the companies' "contains nothing meaningful," accusing them of undermining effective climate action.
"The world should thank them for their offer of advice, but politely turn it down. Arsonists don't make good firefighters," the Greenpeace added.
The offer by the ten oil majors came at a time that the world's nations are getting ready to converge in Paris on November 30 to begin the United Nations climate conference, which some scientists have branded as being as our "last chance" to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.