GHG emissions reduction
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GHG emissions reduction
Jun 28, 2024
Greenhouse gases emissions reduction
Ecopetrol establishes a voluntary annual goal for reducing GHG emissions, based on the identification of initiatives planned to come into operation in the respective year. In 2023, the reduction achieved by new initiatives implemented was 581,532 tCO₂e. The cumulative annual reduction in GHG emissions in the period 2020 - 2023 is 1,491,644 tCO₂e.
Reduction levers
Operational GHG emission reduction initiatives fall into four groups: Energy Efficiency, Flaring Reduction, Fugitive and Venting Emissions, and Renewable Energy. In 2023, 89 new initiatives contributed to GHG emission reductions, of which energy efficiency initiatives account for 55% of the total. In the period 2020 - 2023, 226 GHG emission reduction initiatives have been registered in order to bring us closer to meeting our goals.
GHG emission reduction initiatives
Types of initiatives:
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Energy Efficiency
- To reduce energy consumption per unit of production
- Fugitive Emissions & Venting
- To identify and eliminate gas leaks and ventings in production
- Flaring reduction
- To reduce the volume of gas routinely burned in flares by using it
- Renewable energy
- Diversify energy consumptionwith non-conventional renewablesources
Economic instruments for emission management
The increase in the average global temperature of the planet has grown at an accelerated rate in recent decades, due to economy growth, and its dependence on production and use of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal), among others, which have substantially increased the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere.
With the signing of the Paris Agreement, the parties’ commitments aimed at limiting the temperature increase to well below 2°C. However, in 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a special report warning about the risks of temperature increases above 1.5°C, which means that the efforts to meet this target must increase.
Among the options available to reduce Ecopetrol Group’s emissions is the portfolio strategic review, which includes the use of an internal CO₂e price (value established by the Group as a price for the emission of a tonne of CO₂e avoided or released), a key variable to consider in the future investment opportunities financial analysis.
An internal price consists of associating a cost to the CO₂e emissions to optimize the decision-making process when selecting projects with capital investment, to manage risks and/or to plan the business strategy. The adoption of this decision-making tool seeks to optimize and mitigate the emissions generated in future projects from the beginning, and in the most cost-effective way possible. This economic instrument is intended to help change internal business behaviour, and leverage the development of energy efficiency and low-carbon projects.
To leverage compliance with emission reduction targets, and to manage some of the climate change risks to which the industry is exposed, the Ecopetrol Group defined an internal price on carbon of:
|
Internal Carbon Princing |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Period |
2024 |
2025 - 2029 |
+ 2030 |
|
Price |
25 USD/tCO₂e |
40 USD/tCO₂e |
50 USD/tCO₂e |
. . .
