Crazy, man, crazy

Let’s just burn the whole damn thing! Fuck it, we’ll figure out what to do later:

It’s not possible to listen to petroleum industry executives defending their reckless extraction of oil without feeling that we are living in an age of madness.

In a recent private conversation under the Chatham House rule, one of the world’s most senior industry leaders, who is considered to be at the more moderate end of the spectrum, insisted that we are going to burn all the world’s hydrocarbons despite the consequences.

His reasoning is that a growing population in the developing world needs energy to raise living standards, that renewables will not become a dominant energy source till the end of the century and that politicians don’t have the courage or power to limit production.

He acknowledged that the burning of all reserves would almost certainly lead to temperature rises of up to 4C, but argued the best way forward is to focus on limiting the damage through such technologies as carbon capture and storage.

He’s hardly alone. In a shareholder letter in May, Shell wrote that ­– with energy demand growing – the world would need oil and gas for many decades to come and it doesn’t expect to have any stranded assets, or reserves that can’t be tapped. Meanwhile, in a report in March (pdf), ExxonMobil also expressed confidence that none of its hydrocarbon reserves would be stranded: “We believe producing these assets is essential to meeting growing energy demand worldwide.”

As the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting opens in Davos, Switzerland, I asked the former US vice president Al Gore and climate economist Lord Stern, two of the world’s most respected climate activists, to make sense of the arguments of those running the fossil fuel industry.

The simple fact is that their opinions don’t make any sense, Gore told Guardian Sustainable Business. He remembers being astonished by the argument of one oil executive at Davos, who asked: “what good is it to save the earth if humanity suffers?”

Gore, who believes 80% of coal and two thirds of oil must be left untouched if we are to remain within a 2C temperature rise, said: “I had to think long and hard to think what that statement meant. It’s a non sequitur.”

He quoted Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, a former oil minister in Saudi Arabia, who famously said: “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

As we cross the tipping point where distributive energy sources are available at rates below those for carbon based resources, then this transition [away from petroleum] will become unstoppable,” Gore said. “This will take place; the only question is how quickly.

It is wishful thinking on the part of the oil company executive you are quoting that it will all be burnt. It cannot all be burnt. Even if there is no government action, the constraints of mother nature will show it is a non-sustainable pathway.”