Britain’s Shell and Norway’s Aker BP also abandoned the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a global, corporate-driven program that has spent six years trying to establish a net-zero strategy for the oil and gas sector. That part of the SBTi’s effort is now on pause. (Financial Times)
Talking point: The oil and gas producers balked at SBTi draft standards that would have discouraged them from developing new oil and gas fields once they’d submitted climate plans to the organization, or by the end of 2027, whichever came first. The body denied that its pause is linked to the departures, which happened late last year. It’s one of several climate standard initiatives to be shelved or watered down in recent months, though. In April, Canada’s securities regulator paused work creating rules for how companies report and manage financial risks related to both climate change and diversity factors. And last week, the U.K. scrapped plans to release a taxonomy on what counts as green investments.