Figueres calls for end to 'business as usual'

The former head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change pulled no punches at Offshore Europe this week, telling oil and gas executives that the industry must face up to global warming and stop influencing politicians to retain the status quo at the same time as decarbonising, write Iain Esau and Mark Hillier.

Christiana Figueres — now convener of Mission 2020, a global initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough by 2020 to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from the worst impacts of climate change — said: “The industry must stop lobbying against climate change regulation, directly or indirectly.