Source: National Oil Companies Will Keep Pumping Fossil Fuels ‘To the Last Molecule’
It’s a standard trope these days that personal responsibility doesn’t matter, that climate change is all the fault of big oil. Climate scientist Michael Mann goes so far as to write, “Personal actions, from going vegan to avoiding flying, are increasingly touted as the primary solution to the climate crisis… In fact, one recent study suggests that the emphasis on small personal actions can actually undermine support for the substantive climate policies needed. That’s quite convenient for fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP.”
It’s also quite convenient to blame ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP for the climate crisis because we see their signs on street corners, but the large international firms control just over a tenth of the world’s supply of fossil fuels. The Economist notes—as we did a few years ago—that three-fifths of the world’s oil and half of its natural gas is pumped by national oil companies (NOCs) like Aramco in Saudi Arabia, Gazprom in Russia, and CNPC in China. Then there are a lot of smaller NOCs in Africa and South America that the Economist says are poorly and inefficiently run.
“The Algerian and Venezuelan companies emit three to four times as much carbon in oil production as do the more geologically blessed and better-managed firms such as ADNOC [United Arab Emirates] and Aramco, and flare seven to ten times as much gas per barrel as does QatarEnergy.” Just four of the NOCs have enough fossil fuels to go for another four decades at current rates.
The Economist concludes that it is going to be a struggle getting the NOCs to turn off the taps when countries are so desperate for their revenue. And while some of the biggest and richest NOCs are playing with hydrogen or decreasing their emissions intensity by cleaning up their production, most are smaller and are not making these investments. The biggest NOC of them all, Aramco, has no intention of reducing its output; according to the Economist, the Saudi energy minister, Abdulaziz bin Salman, last year stated the kingdom’s vision clearly: “We are still going to be the last man standing, and every molecule of hydrocarbon will come out.”
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