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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores ideas of responsibility and blame in the energy transition: should fossil fuel companies blamed for climate change assume responsibility by changing their business model, or should responsibility for developing green energy be primarily given to new actors?

Paper long abstract:

Conservationists and environmentalists have long protested against drilling platforms in the Adriatic for the exploitation of gas reserves beneath the seabed. This extractive activity has been blamed for subsidence beneath the coastline, exacerbating erosion of the historic and iconic pine forests and dunes of the Po Delta, rich in biodiversity. Protests returned with renewed vigour when ENI, the Italian oil major, began lobbying the government to use part of Italy’s allocation from the EU pandemic recovery fund, raised through centrally issued green bonds, for a highly ambitious programme of blue hydrogen production, using methane from existing reserves, with emissions to be abated by carbon capture and storage. Meanwhile Agnes, a consortium developing offshore wind and solar power to produce ‘green’ hydrogen, is competing for funding from the same source. ENI’s proposal raises questions about the nature of sustainability: if EU institutions and national governments are to use private capital to achieve a ‘green recovery’, should methane be seen as part of the solution or part of the problem? Is ‘blue’ hydrogen sustainable? Is it morally acceptable to bet on the efficacy of unproven CO2 storage technologies at large scale? How should threats to coastal ecology be taken into account? What weight should be given to local protests? These questions are overshadowed by the competing claims of responsibility and blame: is the oil industry’s rhetoric about a sustainable transition to green energy to be trusted, and are its claims to responsibility likely to be matched by responsible action?