The 2022 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report makes it clear that the risks to human livelihood from global warming and extreme weather events due to climate change are more serious than before.
Climate scientists worldwide, including the influential Peter Kalmus, were moved to peaceful protest and civil disobedience in response.
Yet the state of emergency on the climate seems to have recently taken a back seat in terms of global leaders’ policy priorities, and even more shocking in this context is that fossil fuel companies, particularly oil majors, have filed record profits over the past financial year.
Despite the sector’s volatility, oil and gas are highly profitable, particularly at moments of geopolitical uncertainty coupled with high prices, as is the case now. ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron have made about $2-trillion in the past three decades. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made the sector even more ridiculously profitable, with the 28 largest oil and gas companies recording profits of more than $100bn in the first quarter of 2022 alone.
Shell recorded $9.1bn, while BP made its highest-yet first-quarter profit of $6.2bn. It is not surprising that there is mounting evidence that Big Oil has little intention of transitioning to net-zero or investing in renewables delivery with numbers like these.
The invasion of Ukraine has led to energy uncertainty, with much of Europe dependent on Russian gas supplies. And the reputational toxicity in the EU and UK for Russian oil has seen the price of oil skyrocket in recent weeks.
Instead of capitalising on a golden opportunity to develop the renewables sector and wean themselves off the volatile geopolitical booby trap of Big Oil, global leaders are instead doubling down on assuring oil and gas supplies as fossil fuel lobbyists smell blood, sensing the climate policy vulnerabilities.
Global leaders are instead doubling down on assuring oil and gas supplies as fossil fuel lobbyists smell blood, sensing the climate policy vulnerabilities
In response to the Russian invasion, UK prime minister Boris Johnson went cap-in-hand to suck up to the Saudis shortly after the invasion, when he could have done what he should have been doing since he was elected: invest in accelerating the UK’s promising renewables sector.
The UK wouldn’t be in this ridiculous situation of having to bargain with less-than-salubrious regimes if it had been putting its money where its mouth was on net-zero targets and commitments made at COP26. Moreover, it’s just a matter of time before the Saudi kingdom becomes another political dirty bomb. If the outcry over alleged human rights abuses there reaches critical mass, then what?
Then I suppose African governments will step in as they are already positioning themselves to do: showcasing their oil and gas bounty to the world’s extractive and exploration majors. We have already seen the beginnings of an extraordinary backlash against the global consensus of climate change mitigation on the continent.
With a rare opportunity to capitalise on and develop their lucrative oil and gas deposits over what is sure to be a protracted conflict, many African countries have been asking why they should be made to stick to climate targets when they emit the least emissions and their countries need economic development.
European countries and their extractive and exploration companies are already pivoting their long-term energy strategies towards the African continent that will undermine the real progress that has been made on the continent towards large-scale renewables development and implementation. This will also all prove interesting geopolitically given the African countries’ recent voting patterns on Russia at the UN Security Council.
In the run-up to COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh later this year, these issues are likely to come to a head. While global leaders allow them to be gaslit by Big Oil, the world is simultaneously burning and drowning in extreme weather events.
• Dr Masie, a former senior editor of the Financial Mail, is chief strategist at IC Publications in London.
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