:00:21. > :00:24.years. Time for HARDtalk welcome to
:00:24. > :00:27.HARDtalk. My guest today made his name and fortune in the oil
:00:27. > :00:31.industry, and in the process became one of Britain's best known
:00:32. > :00:38.business leaders. Lord Browne was BP's boss for 12 years where he
:00:38. > :00:41.expanded and diversified one of the world's fossil fuel giants. He's
:00:41. > :00:45.back in the thick of the energy debate, backing a company eager to
:00:45. > :00:47.develop shale gas production in the UK. His career has been defined by
:00:47. > :00:57.the search for fossil fuel and economic sustainability. Can we
:00:57. > :01:23.
:01:23. > :01:27.Welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you.It strikes me that you spent pretty
:01:27. > :01:32.much your whole professional life in the quest for fossil fuels. I
:01:32. > :01:37.wonder now, looking back on a long career, whether that is a source of
:01:37. > :01:42.absolute pride for you or whether you feel somewhat ambivalent about
:01:42. > :01:46.it? I am very proud of it because fossil fuels have enabled all of us
:01:46. > :01:50.to do far more than we could have done without them. They, like
:01:50. > :01:54.everything else, have a good side and a dark side, but I am very
:01:54. > :02:00.proud of the fact that I have helped bring energy to a lot of
:02:00. > :02:04.people in the world. But unleashed the dark side as well. Absolutely.
:02:05. > :02:11.I have recently written a book about seven elements. Every element
:02:11. > :02:16.has a dark side and a good side. Richard Feynman, the great American
:02:16. > :02:20.physicist, said every man is given the keys to heaven and the same key
:02:20. > :02:24.opens the gates of hell. And I think this is true with the
:02:24. > :02:30.elements, particularly with carbon. It brings pollution, issues of
:02:30. > :02:36.global warming, greed, corruption, all of these things. But equally,
:02:36. > :02:42.it brings heat, light, mobility. You can read at night, stay warm in
:02:42. > :02:46.cold climates and warm -- hold in warm climates and you can do
:02:46. > :02:51.extraordinary work. And it fuelled the industrial revolution. It is
:02:51. > :02:56.why we are all sitting here. That amount of coal for a man of average
:02:56. > :03:00.weight can do the same amount of work as a man working for 100 days
:03:00. > :03:08.and that was the breakthrough. have already introduced a topic and
:03:08. > :03:12.one to get to, climate change. I am fascinated to remember that it was
:03:12. > :03:16.you in 1997 who was the first of the large oil chief executives to
:03:16. > :03:23.make a set-piece speech in which you said that there does appear to
:03:23. > :03:27.be a link between man-made carbon emissions and our changing climate.
:03:27. > :03:34.You were criticised by others in the industry, including the chief
:03:34. > :03:39.of Exxon at the time. Looking back, rather than speaking about it,
:03:40. > :03:44.could you have done more to change the situation? We did quite a lot.
:03:44. > :03:47.I never like going back to justify history but the reality is that the
:03:47. > :03:52.world cannot live without hydrocarbon fuels but we can mix
:03:52. > :03:57.them up with different things to reduce the amount of carbon week in
:03:57. > :04:02.it. For example, if we burned all the natural gas we had as reserves
:04:02. > :04:08.in the entire world today, we would only use 33% of what is called the
:04:08. > :04:13.carbon budget that we have to prevent the atmosphere, apparently,
:04:13. > :04:17.all the world are warming up to that levels. Let's be very clear,
:04:17. > :04:21.briefly and clearly, you believe that man-made climate change is
:04:21. > :04:25.continuing to happen and that it threatens to go beyond the two
:04:25. > :04:29.degrees centigrade rise that scientists posit is the threshold
:04:29. > :04:33.beyond which it becomes really dangerous. Like a scientist, I have
:04:33. > :04:37.to say I believe it because of probabilities but in the back of my
:04:37. > :04:42.mind, I do believe they might be something worse or something much
:04:42. > :04:47.better. Right now, temperatures not rising as fast as "of they should
:04:47. > :04:52.be". But yes, this is an issue and we should start taking precautions
:04:52. > :04:58.to make sure it does not happen. You were well known through the
:04:58. > :05:03.late 1990s and early to thousands for taking the p in a different
:05:03. > :05:08.direction. BP's standing for beyond Petroleum. You took decisions not
:05:08. > :05:14.to get involved in tar sand exploitation in Canada. You wanted
:05:14. > :05:20.to be the first green will company, it seemed. But we look at BP today
:05:20. > :05:25.and it must be concluded that will strategy has failed. Well, you can
:05:25. > :05:28.conclude what you want. What I was doing was tried to diversified the
:05:29. > :05:33.base of the company to make it sustainable for the future, to be
:05:33. > :05:38.involved in debates about itself. It is an uncomfortable feeling as a
:05:38. > :05:43.company to have other people debate your future without you been at the
:05:43. > :05:49.table where the debate is taking place. I wanted to do that and I
:05:49. > :05:53.wanted to have a variety of energy sources. And that, I think, was the
:05:53. > :05:58.right thing to do because nobody else was doing it at the time.
:05:58. > :06:03.with respect, it didn't work. BP has pulled out a solar energy, it
:06:03. > :06:06.is pulling out of wind energy in the US. It is going into those
:06:06. > :06:10.Canadian tar sands, some of the most polluting oil production
:06:10. > :06:18.facilities in the world. The peak has essentially made a series of U-
:06:18. > :06:22.turns since he quit. -- the company. If I may, it is not the world. I
:06:22. > :06:26.always thought BP was a very important company. But many people
:06:26. > :06:31.are doing different things that they were not to win the 1997. We
:06:31. > :06:36.have very large solar energy companies, wind energy companies,
:06:36. > :06:42.very large biogas companies. I know that because that is what I now do
:06:42. > :06:48.with part of my life. Speciality, if you will. Speciality following
:06:48. > :06:51.specialisms in the industry. Interesting answer. We will follow
:06:51. > :06:56.renewables further later on but in terms of BP, it is important to
:06:56. > :06:59.nail this because it is such an important company not just in the
:06:59. > :07:05.UK but around the world. Are you saying they are misguided in
:07:05. > :07:10.second-guessing the strategy you put forward? Not at all. Facts and
:07:10. > :07:15.certainties -- circumstances change. When they change, strategies change.
:07:15. > :07:20.Hang on, you were against Tas and exploitation, for example. As the
:07:20. > :07:25.chief executive of the company, if you were still running it, when you
:07:26. > :07:29.will we do not go into car sounds? When I was running it, it was very
:07:29. > :07:34.clear that there were better choices to be made that were
:07:34. > :07:37.cheaper and at less risk of being unsustainable in the long-term. If
:07:37. > :07:45.there are different choices to be made, you should be interviewing
:07:45. > :07:50.the present chief executive of BP. You sit here as the major financier
:07:50. > :07:55.-- major executive of a financier. Ethically as well as commercially,
:07:55. > :07:59.would you be interested in putting money in to a project like that
:07:59. > :08:05.today? Hypothetically because we have not done so, we would think
:08:05. > :08:10.about it. You would have no ethical problem with it in terms of your
:08:10. > :08:16.perspective on climate change? That if the sums add up, go for it?
:08:16. > :08:21.the end of, you only do business that can last. If we think it will
:08:21. > :08:24.not last and I think some of us won't, we may get to the point
:08:25. > :08:29.where some of this production may never be made because we may not
:08:29. > :08:35.need it in the way that is being conceived at the moment, then we
:08:35. > :08:38.would not going. I want to tap into your experience in one of the area
:08:38. > :08:43.before we get on to the future and what you're doing now and will take
:08:43. > :08:47.on the energy mix and the world economy going forward. One other
:08:47. > :08:51.aspect of leadership at the company and that concerns the balance
:08:52. > :08:58.between pushing the boundaries of technology and exploration and
:08:58. > :09:04.always maintaining a commitment to safety. Environmental safety and
:09:04. > :09:09.worker safety. Do you think you got that balance right? I think we got
:09:09. > :09:12.the balance to an extent right. There was one big event when I was
:09:12. > :09:17.the chief executive, which was the terrible accident at Texas City,
:09:17. > :09:24.which killed 15 people. And we learned from that day onwards that
:09:24. > :09:29.what we have to do to understand how to avoid small events that
:09:29. > :09:35.might lead to very large consequences. Today, they call them
:09:35. > :09:40.Black Swan events or a thick tail risk. That is where I was mostly
:09:40. > :09:45.focused for the last couple of years. It was not a Black Swan
:09:45. > :09:49.event, Texas city, was it? If one looks at the record, which I have
:09:49. > :09:55.done, there were orders that your company commissioned that talked of
:09:55. > :09:59.an intolerable risk situation. may, people did not understand the
:09:59. > :10:05.implications of the small events, the some of which... four people
:10:05. > :10:12.died in that plant the year before it blew up. Terrible. I realise
:10:13. > :10:16.that. But there were events that we did not fully understand. I am very
:10:16. > :10:21.concerned about that. There were so many different things to look at
:10:21. > :10:25.and different ways of explaining Texas city. We could catalogue them
:10:25. > :10:30.but it will not be worthwhile. The point is that we learned a
:10:30. > :10:34.tremendous amount from that. reason I wanted to go into that
:10:34. > :10:38.with you some what is that it seems to me that people around the world
:10:38. > :10:43.watching this will be asking a question - should I place my trust
:10:43. > :10:47.in the big oil companies today given their record over decades? Is
:10:47. > :10:52.there any reason as they push the boundaries of exploration, whether
:10:52. > :10:55.it is in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, offshore in the Arctic, is
:10:55. > :11:00.there any reason we should give them the benefit of the doubt when
:11:00. > :11:03.it comes to their commitment to safety and security of the
:11:03. > :11:09.Environment? Do you think the industry deserves the benefit of
:11:09. > :11:15.the doubt? Yes, I do, much like any other industry. Things are more
:11:16. > :11:20.challenging. People want to do more. The technology allows us to do more.
:11:20. > :11:23.Small events create a very big consequences. The same is true with
:11:23. > :11:29.the nuclear industry and the food industry, tracking whether or not
:11:29. > :11:33.people are eating what is on the label. The scaling of activity, the
:11:33. > :11:38.pushing of boundaries, that means there are risks. It is up to people
:11:38. > :11:44.to look at companies to say if they have the systems in place to reduce
:11:44. > :11:49.those risks. That is a very, very important thing to look at. Yes.
:11:49. > :11:54.Texas city. Then the fund a horse platform that nearly sank. The
:11:54. > :11:59.pipeline link in Alaska. All on your watch. And then, not connected
:11:59. > :12:04.with you at all, we also had Deepwater Horizon. For BP in
:12:04. > :12:07.particular, the last decade has been pretty disastrous. And I just
:12:07. > :12:13.wonder when you express confidence in the ability of the industry to
:12:13. > :12:17.get this calibration right, why you have this confidence. Partly
:12:17. > :12:22.because people learn from the tragedies of for the past. Do they
:12:22. > :12:28.really? I have given you a list and they still seem to be happening.
:12:28. > :12:32.think that they do, generally. They do, generally. I know that people
:12:33. > :12:36.try and learn internally. But I think that one has to look out the
:12:36. > :12:41.complexity of life today and say that actually, it is all very
:12:41. > :12:46.complicated and we need great people, great systems, great
:12:46. > :12:50.learning, and still it is the case that we worry. In the case of
:12:50. > :12:55.nuclear energy, for example, interestingly, people are terrified
:12:55. > :13:00.of nuclear energy but statistically, it is one of the safest, if not the
:13:00. > :13:06.safest, form of energy in the world. But people do read it because of
:13:06. > :13:09.the possibility of extraordinary consequences. -- read it. Quite
:13:09. > :13:12.right and the Fukushima nuclear plant told us that. As the
:13:12. > :13:15.threshold is pushed in the oil industry as well, you are reaching
:13:15. > :13:22.a point when the next major disaster might be very difficult
:13:22. > :13:26.for the whole industry to cover. Andrew George, who works for a big
:13:26. > :13:30.insurance broker, says that we are facing this landscape in the fossil
:13:30. > :13:35.fuel business that is perhaps the most challenging in the history of
:13:35. > :13:40.this industry. That I am sure about because people are getting more and
:13:40. > :13:43.more complex and more and more difficult because we are at the
:13:43. > :13:47.boundary. For give me for interrupting but other parts of the
:13:47. > :13:51.world you would not undertake exploration in because the risks
:13:51. > :13:55.are so high? For it would depend on who I am and how much technology I
:13:55. > :13:59.have and the nature of the people I have and whether I felt they really
:13:59. > :14:04.understood what they were doing. There are plenty of cases where the
:14:04. > :14:09.risks are too high. Deepwater is one of them. One final thought on
:14:09. > :14:14.the past. Russia. It fascinates me that you have such a story to tell
:14:14. > :14:19.about your business links with Russia. You're the man at BP who
:14:19. > :14:24.took the company into Russia in a big way. In 2003, you signed that
:14:24. > :14:29.symbolic agreement with tea and cake, the biggest investor in the
:14:29. > :14:33.entire country. And it all went wrong. It ended in acrimony, court
:14:33. > :14:39.cases. Bob Dudley was lucky to get out of the country without facing
:14:39. > :14:49.prison. Do you think you got Vladimir Putin's Russia run as
:14:49. > :14:59.
:14:59. > :15:06.It became a regarded as one of the best oil companies in Russia.
:15:06. > :15:13.Increasing production, creating new jobs, having better people but it
:15:13. > :15:20.in the end, it lived its life and it started at small and finished be.
:15:20. > :15:28.BP gained a tremendous amount of value from it. Would you go back to
:15:28. > :15:34.Russia? I read if you have been wooed? I AM and wooed by lots of
:15:34. > :15:41.people. To do business in Russia if you need to be like BP. You need a
:15:41. > :15:48.thick skin. It is not long ago we had William, a big fund manager in
:15:48. > :15:55.Moscow, who fell foul -- fell foul of the Russian authorities and he
:15:55. > :16:01.said it he warned to steer Clear off Vladimir Putin's Russia. I was
:16:01. > :16:06.there some time ago. Provided you were doing things which will pure
:16:07. > :16:11.and simple, for the best that of Russia and your benefit, and you
:16:11. > :16:16.never changed strategy, you can get things done. That is exactly what
:16:16. > :16:25.with it. We got things done in a way which we're quite proud.
:16:25. > :16:31.you ever compromised ethically? I find that surprising given what
:16:31. > :16:36.we know about the way business is done. We ran business with a set of
:16:36. > :16:41.rules and ran up clearly and simply. Whether or not people around us
:16:41. > :16:47.were breaking rules, that I do not know but as far as BP was concerned,
:16:47. > :16:54.we ran it in a very at the Galway. I promise I want to talk about the
:16:54. > :16:58.future as well as the past. The way you left BP in at 2007. You now
:16:58. > :17:05.work with private equity funds looking at the energy business and
:17:05. > :17:11.opportunities. One such opportunity you are excited about his fracking.
:17:11. > :17:16.The hydraulic fracturing prices which can lead to enormous
:17:16. > :17:21.resources of gas being unlocked. Do you believe that he's a game
:17:21. > :17:26.changer or as we discuss the future of the energy business? I do not
:17:26. > :17:31.have to believe march. I just have to look at what is happening in
:17:31. > :17:37.America and, indeed, it has changed the game in America. Seven years
:17:37. > :17:40.ago, most people thought that America would run out of natural
:17:40. > :17:48.gas and would have to import liquified gas from places like
:17:48. > :17:53.Nigeria. That has not happen. Plenty of people built terminals to
:17:53. > :17:58.receive this gas which I'm not going to be used. The reason for
:17:58. > :18:02.that is the impact of hydraulic fracturing initial rock and the
:18:02. > :18:07.production of gas. He now represents 30% of the gas
:18:07. > :18:14.production of the US. It will probably rise. It has unlocked a
:18:14. > :18:21.huge amount of reserve all-over the US. That was brought not by modern
:18:21. > :18:25.technology. Fracking, again, I point out in marble, was invented
:18:25. > :18:32.just after the American Civil War by Colonel Robert. It was a
:18:32. > :18:35.combination of things that allow things to open up. One a great
:18:35. > :18:40.entrepreneur and drove it until it was successful. You talk about the
:18:40. > :18:48.book and in the book you acknowledge the fossil fuel
:18:48. > :18:54.industry will eventually die, not because we run out of fossil fuel
:18:54. > :18:58.but because the price context, demand, or technology, will move on.
:18:59. > :19:02.That's right. So why not acknowledge, and given the
:19:02. > :19:08.conversation earlier about climate change and your concerns about it,
:19:08. > :19:12.acknowledge that it would be very wise to take a decision to leave a
:19:12. > :19:17.significant reserves of fossil fuel, including these shall gases in the
:19:17. > :19:21.ground and concentrate on a renewables, on and on carbon-based
:19:21. > :19:26.fuels that will give us a clean future? Because it probably will
:19:26. > :19:32.not happen like that. If you leave gas in the ground in one country,
:19:32. > :19:37.it will come from another country or, worse, or call will be burned
:19:37. > :19:42.instead. That is simply a counsel of despair. We are trying to win
:19:42. > :19:45.this battle against man-made emissions. So we might as well just
:19:45. > :19:53.make money while we can. I believe that to be wrong. You can replace
:19:53. > :20:00.the heavier, more heavy carbon fuels with lighter carbon and are
:20:01. > :20:05.so gas will make a big difference as we go for what, lightening the
:20:05. > :20:10.load of a CO2 produce into the atmosphere. That is your conviction.
:20:10. > :20:15.You Gerrick company in the UK called Craig Treloar which wants to
:20:15. > :20:19.push the technology forward inside the United Kingdom. You have a big
:20:19. > :20:24.problem because in north-west England, we have an exploration
:20:24. > :20:32.site and in the south of England, local communities simply do not
:20:32. > :20:36.want heat. That is not wholly clear. The local communities wanted under
:20:36. > :20:44.certain circumstances. Well, I do not know how many public meetings
:20:44. > :20:47.you have been to but one protester I saw said you were basically
:20:47. > :20:53.trying to industrialise England's rural landscape and many others
:20:53. > :21:00.seem to feel the same way. I read the same quote. Surveys of the
:21:00. > :21:09.local population, particularly around Preston,... In the north-
:21:09. > :21:14.west where you already have subtly in plays but you had to suspend
:21:14. > :21:19.operations because of tremors... had to understand what was going on
:21:19. > :21:23.and stop it from happening again. It is a matter of doing things in
:21:23. > :21:28.the right way. This will be beneficial for communities. It is
:21:28. > :21:33.something that can be done that has not impact communities in a very
:21:33. > :21:41.bad and disturbing for destructive way. Have you seen the film, Gas
:21:41. > :21:46.land. The director claims 65 of the compounds used in fracking a
:21:46. > :21:49.significantly hazardous to human health. You except that? You can do
:21:49. > :21:55.fracking with different to what and you can do it with very benign
:21:55. > :21:59.additives. That is where people are today. We have very clear that when
:21:59. > :22:05.we do this activity, we announce exactly what we are put inside the
:22:05. > :22:11.rocks and what is coming back. you a rational optimism about the
:22:11. > :22:16.future? It strikes me you have been on a real journey from beyond
:22:16. > :22:21.Petroleum and complete rebranding BP as a Green company. Ewen now
:22:21. > :22:24.keen to make money out of different fossil fuel projects. Not at all.
:22:24. > :22:29.At pinger have a balanced view of what is practical and what is
:22:29. > :22:33.needed to get from here to there. We cannot abandon today's
:22:33. > :22:37.activities for the sake of an uncertain future and equally we
:22:37. > :22:42.cannot let go up of the great new of the future by saying, well, we
:22:42. > :22:48.will just carry on what we were doing. It seems to me, necessity
:22:48. > :22:53.has changed things a lot. It has opened up brand new Vestas in gas.
:22:53. > :22:58.Gas is better than coal. We have understood more about deficiencies
:22:58. > :23:04.of energy. Cars now to double the mileage than they used to do 15
:23:04. > :23:08.years ago. People use less electricity and television students,
:23:08. > :23:12.in lighting, in houses - all these things are changing dramatically
:23:12. > :23:17.the way in which we think about energy and its impact on the
:23:17. > :23:23.environment. I come back to the rational optimists - it was coined
:23:23. > :23:29.by Matt Ridley who believed in the end, technology will come up trumps
:23:29. > :23:34.even if we do not know how the climate change conundrum can be
:23:34. > :23:43.sold, future generations will do it for Russ. Is that mentality good
:23:43. > :23:48.enough? Technology will create a new future. Thomas... We should put
:23:48. > :23:53.a stake through his heart. We think we're going to run out of resources,
:23:53. > :23:57.not true. Again, in my book I talk about the elements that have made a
:23:57. > :24:01.difference - silicon, little bits of sand now create everything that
:24:01. > :24:08.we do. All the communication technology as well as great mirrors
:24:08. > :24:12.and things like that. It is all these things are created by humans
:24:12. > :24:18.need to advance, to do something different, to answer the question