CERAWEEK-Statoil pushes oil industry to take bold climate steps

(Adds industry context, further quotes)

By Ernest Scheyder

HOUSTON, April 21 (Reuters) - The oil and natural gas industry cannot ignore climate change and must support work to help curb its effects through a carbon tax, increased natural gas production and other means, Statoil ASA Chief Executive Eldar Sætre said on Tuesday.

It was the strongest stance yet from the leader of a major oil producer on the need to limit carbon emissions. Some major energy companies, especially in Europe, have been pushing for an industry-coordinated response to stem climate change.

"We recognize and fully acknowledge the climate issues and want to take our part of the responsibility to find solutions," Sætre said in an interview on the sidelines of the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston, the world's largest annual gathering of oil executives. "We want to be the most carbon efficient oil and gas company out there."

Sætre used a keynote speech at the conference to double down on the theme, telling a room of hundreds of global energy industry players that action must be taken on climate change, otherwise "we risk becoming an industry that neither gets access nor acceptance."

The sentiment was reflected by executives at Britain's BP and France's Total SA (Paris: FR0000120271 - news) during smaller sessions earlier in the conference.

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, while acknowledging carbon emissions concerns, stopped short of embracing Sætre's philosophy.

"We recognize the (climate change) policy is important to the public," Tillerson told a CERAWeek panel. "We need to somehow reflect that."

The conference comes just days after Calpers, the largest American public pension fund, asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to require energy companies to publish specific data on climate change risks.

CARBON TAX

Sætre, who took the reins at Statoil (Xetra: 675213 - news) two months ago, touted a Norwegian tax of roughly $65 per ton of carbon dioxide as a possible global model, noting it has helped cut Norway's emissions to roughly half the global average.

Moving forward, Sætre said increased natural gas use, which cuts coal consumption, can help slash carbon emissions. He also renewed a Statoil pledge to eliminate flaring, the wasteful burning of natural gas at well sites, by 2030.

Yet even while taking a major policy stance on climate change, Sætre said he has no plans for Statoil to dramatically change its business model.

"There's no way the world is getting out of oil and natural gas production," he said. (Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Terry Wade and David Gregorio)