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Climate One

John Browne: Engineering the Future

Climate One

Climate One

News, News Commentary, Science, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences

4.7583 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Can oil companies reinvent themselves as clean energy providers? John Browne attempted it over more than a decade as CEO of British Petroleum, where he led the company's “Beyond Petroleum” rebranding campaign. In his new book, Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilization, Browne argues that the solution to reducing emissions and addressing climate change is a mass deployment of engineered technology — and that the tools we need to get there already exist. Join us for a conversation on the potential of energy incumbents to become innovators. Visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts for more information on today's episode. Guest: Lord John Browne, Former CEO, British Petroleum; Author, Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilization This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California on October 30, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:42.5

How can human ingenuity help us cope with life in a hot and crowded world?

0:46.5

Climate One Conversations feature oil companies and environmentalists,

0:51.7

Republicans and Democrats, the exciting and the scary aspects of the climate challenge.

0:53.0

I'm Greg Dalton.

0:55.5

Today's program is generously underwritten by Climate Works Foundation and RBC Wealth Management. John Brown started working for British Petroleum

1:02.1

as a college student in 1966 and served as CEO from 1995 to 2007. He engineered a $48 billion

1:10.8

merger with American oil giant Amico that vaulted BP into third place globally.

1:16.6

A few years later, BP signaled a transition away from fossil fuels with a major rebranding campaign.

1:22.6

Beyond darkness, light, Beyond petroleum. BP.

1:28.3

But aggressive cost cutting sowed the seeds of disaster.

1:32.3

April 20th.

1:33.3

An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig kills 11 workers.

1:37.3

5,000 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, crude oil spews from a well 13,000

1:43.3

feet under the seabed. Brown was no longer with BP at the

1:47.2

time of the Deepwater Horizon debacle, but industry insiders say he created a corporate culture and

1:52.6

safety practices that increased the likelihood of such an event. Growing up, Brown spent time in

1:58.2

southern Iran, where his father worked for the Anglo-Iranian

2:01.2

Oil Company, which later became BP.

2:04.3

As an adult, he wrote that his youth was, quote, surrounded by oil and its awe-inspiring

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