Reducing carbon footprint is an area of focus for Shell

THE world has a puzzle to solve, a jigsaw with a spectacular number of pieces to place. If it can succeed, it will win a priceless prize: it will achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming to under two degrees celcius. It is the puzzle of the energy transition.

Piecing together a solution is going to be tricky and we at Shell have been trying to make progress as a company. We have a way forward now and I am going to share it with you.

But, first, the jigsaw.

Part of the challenge is that the world has to stop adding to the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, probably by 2070, according to credible scenarios.

That is hard enough to achieve, but there is more to it than that: large parts of the world's population still live without access to safe, reliable and affordable energy. The world's population is growing and, as living standards rise, energy demand could double over the course of the century. All of this must be part of the solution, part of the picture, too. We must work together to meet this…