In the opposites world of CERAWeek, the oil and gas industry’s big, annual conference in Houston, the energy transition is stumbling, its cost is prohibitive, a raging, global climate emergency is beside the point, and we’d all better dig in for another 40 years of oil and gas.
It’s a good thing the rest of us live in the real world.
To hear the oil and gas execs tell it, the energy transition that is picking up momentum all around us is just a figment of our imaginations, and it’s time to face the “hard realities” that fossil fuel consumption will grow for at least another decade or two.
To their credit, the daily news outlets covering CERAWeek didn’t take the executives’ hype at face value. And some of the strongest commentary come from the companies that are already beginning to push fossil fuels to the margins.
“The fantasy is that the oil and gas industry think that by putting more emissions in the world, it gets better,” said Fortescue Energy CEO Mark Hutchinson. “You have the oil and gas industry baring their teeth,” and “now the world knows these guys are never going to be part of the solution.”
But that dose of reality didn't stop CERAWeek panelists from doing what they were going to do. And nor should anyone have expected it to. Apart from any private business deals that were going on behind the scenes, spinning a positive, hopeful narrative for jittery investors and an increasingly skeptical public was the whole point of the exercise.
Click here to get the rest of this story.