LONDON: Teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg slammed inaction over climate change as the global oil industry found itself under intense scrutiny on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The teenage activist went head to head with the septuagenarian US president who dismissed climate “prophets of doom” in his speech.
She in turn brushed off the US president’s pledge to join the economic forum’s initiative to plant 1 trillion trees to help capture carbon dioxide.
“Planting trees is good of course but it’s nowhere near enough,” Thunberg said. “It cannot replace mitigation. We need to start listening to the science, and treat this crisis with the importance it deserves,” said the 17-year-old,
The 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum was dominated by the global threat posed by climate change and the carbon economy.
The environmental focus of Davos 2020 caps a year when carbon emissions from fossil fuels hit a record high and the devastating effects of bushfires in Australia and other climate disasters dominated the news.
Oil company executives from the Gulf and elsewhere are in the spotlight at this year’s Davos meeting as they come under increased pressure to demonstrate how they are reducing their carbon footprint.
“We are not only fighting for our industry’s life but fighting for people to understand the things that we are doing, said Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental, the US-based oil giant with extensive oil operations in the Gulf. “As an industry when we could be different — we will be different.”
She said the company was getting close to being able to sequester significant volumes of CO2 in the US Permian Basin, the heartland of the American shale oil industry which is increasingly in competition with the conventional oil producers of the Arabian Gulf.
“The Permian Basin has the capacity to store 150 gigatons of CO2. That would be 28 years of emissions in the US. That’s the prize for us and that’s the opportunity. People say if you’re sequestering in an oil reservoir then you are producing more oil, but the reality is that it takes more CO2 to inject into a reservoir than the barrel of oil that it makes come out.”
She said the challenge Occidental and other oil companies face is to make investors understand what is happening in this area of carbon sequesteration.
The investment community at Davos is also looking hard at the oil industry in the face of mounting investor concerns.
Greenpeace told the Davos gathering that the world’s largest banks, funds and insurance companies invested $1.4 trillion in fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal. It accused some of these groups of failing to live up to the World Economic Forum goal of “improving the state of the world.”
Davos turns up heat on big oil as Thunberg slams climate inaction
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Davos turns up heat on big oil as Thunberg slams climate inaction
- The teenage activist went head to head with the septuagenarian US president who dismissed climate prophets of doom in his speech
- She in turn brushed off the US president’s pledge to join the economic forum’s initiative to plant 1 trillion trees to help capture carbon dioxide
Iran war unsettles India’s packaged water makers as bottles, caps get pricey
- Higher polymer prices hurt bottled water industry
- Industry worth $5 billion has big multinational players like Pepsi, Coca-Cola
NEW DELHI: The Iran war is rattling India’s $5 billion packaged water market just ahead of the sweltering summer season.
One of the world’s fastest growing bottled water markets is seeing some manufacturers hike prices for distributors, as supply disruptions linked to the war fuel higher costs in everything from plastic bottles to caps, labels and cardboard boxes.
Though retail prices are yet to feel the heat and bigger companies are absorbing the pain, about 2,000 smaller bottled water makers have increased rates for their resellers by around 1 rupee per bottle, a 5 percent hike, which will rise by a further 10 percent in coming days, according to the Federation of All India Packaged Drinking Water Manufacturers’ Association.
Consumers usually pay less than 20 rupees, or around 20 US cents, for a one-liter bottle.
“There is chaos and within the next 4-5 days, this will start impacting customer prices,” said Apurva Doshi, the federation’s secretary general.
Rising oil prices have increased the cost of polymer, which is made from crude oil and is a key material for the industry’s plastic bottles. The cost of material used in making plastic bottles has risen by 50 percent to 170 rupees per kilogram, while the price of the caps has more than doubled to 0.45 rupees apiece. Even corrugated boxes, labels and adhesive tape are costing much more, industry letters showed.
Clean water is a privilege in the country of 1.4 billion people where researchers say 70 percent of the groundwater is contaminated, leaving people reliant on bottled water. Companies including Bisleri, Coca-Cola’s Kinley, Pepsi’s Aquafina, billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance and Tata all compete for a share of the $5 billion market. The companies did not respond to Reuters request for comment.
PREMIUM WATER FACES HEAT TOO
Within the broad bottled water market, natural mineral water is a $400 million business in India and a new, fast-growing wellness product for India’s wealthy.
The premium water segment accounted for 8 percent of the bottled water market last year in India, compared to just 1 percent in 2021, Euromonitor says.
Aava, which sells mineral water sourced from the foothills of the Aravalli mountains, has increased prices of its water bottles by 18 percent for resellers, Shiroy Mehta, CEO of the company, told Reuters.
“Most manufacturers are absorbing 40-50 percent of the cost to ensure that they don’t lose clients. It’s a poor situation for the beverage industry ahead of the summer season,” he said.
The mass market, however, is dominated by companies that produce “drinking water” to be sold in 1-liter bottles to customers. Clear Premium Water, a brand of India’s Energy Beverages, said in a notice to its distributors there had been an “unprecedented and continuous surge” in prices of key raw materials used in packaging and production.
“It is no longer possible for us to absorb the escalating costs while maintaining existing product prices,” the notice said.
