Energy transition and net zero themes announced for Calgary-hosted World Petroleum Congress in 2023
The World Petroleum Congress set to be hosted in Calgary in 2023 can have a theme that units it aside from previous occasions: vitality transition and the trail to internet zero.
It’s the primary time internet zero has been explicitly talked about as a theme to the triennial petroleum {industry} gathering.
“This theme is a crucial new course for the World Petroleum Congress and its members, and it displays the thrilling future within the world vitality {industry},” Denis Painchaud, president of the Canadian organizing committee, mentioned in an announcement.
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“A whole lot of what occurs in Calgary will assist form the course of the worldwide vitality {industry} within the years to come back.”
The theme was introduced Wednesday in Calgary on the identical day a draft settlement was launched at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, urging nations to hurry up efforts to part out fossil gasoline subsidies.
The announcement additionally comes out the day after a metropolis committee forwarded a movement for the declaration of a local weather emergency to a Monday assembly of metropolis council for debate and choice.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek repeated an earlier rebuttal to the concept that such a declaration is at odds with a metropolis economic system with the vitality sector as its spine.
“Internet hosting the congress is not going to solely drive important financial influence for our metropolis, however it should permit us to showcase our experience and the nice work that’s taking place proper now as a worldwide vitality transition chief,” Gondek mentioned in an announcement, calling the theme “forward-thinking.”
Earlier this 12 months, a coalition of major oil sands companies dedicated to a 97 per cent discount in emissions by 2050 as a part of a internet zero promise.
Minister of Pure Sources Jonathan Wilkinson mentioned the federal authorities would proceed working with firms to attain internet zero targets.
“Calgary will probably be a superb venue for facilitating these conversations, and for making actual progress in constructing a extra sustainable and affluent economic system for the long run,” Wilkinson mentioned in an announcement.
Alberta Power Minister Sonya Savage agreed.
“On the coronary heart of our improvement are the cornerstones of the oil and fuel sector, innovation, entrepreneurship and ingenuity; with all of those strengths, Alberta is the appropriate place to have these discussions and alternate of concepts,” she mentioned in an announcement.
Finest practices have been predominant themes in previous congresses, however occasion organizers mentioned the Calgary gathering hopes to develop its scope to incorporate different industry-adjacent areas like pipelines, petrochemicals, provide chain and clear tech.
“The Calgary Congress will proceed the custom of addressing the important thing {industry} points, together with local weather change and the setting, and comes at a crucial time after COP26 when the world is anticipating a transition to internet zero,” Peirce Riemer, director normal for the World Petroleum Council, mentioned.
Occasion organizers count on the twenty fourth World Petroleum Congress will entice 15,000 guests from greater than 100 nations with a neighborhood financial influence estimated to be $50 million. Some 500 CEOs and greater than 50 heads of state and vitality ministers are additionally anticipated to be in attendance.
It’s the primary time since 2000 that Calgary has hosted the World Petroleum Congress, and far has modified within the metropolis since then.
The town’s inhabitants has almost doubled from 860,000 to 1.4 million.
The province’s GDP has grown from $208 billion in 2000 to $307.5 billion in 2020, peaking at $338 billion in 2014.
However the metropolis has additionally been hit arduous by an oil value crash in 2015 that resulted in an emptying-out of the town’s downtown. A latest Avison Younger report confirmed the town’s downtown emptiness at 29.9 per cent, and metropolis reviews present $16 billion in misplaced property worth.
Calgary’s 2023 occasion will probably be preceded by a COVID-delayed gathering in Houston, TX, in December.
–with information from Reuters
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