[Street Pharmacist]

The tribalism with "environmentalist vs Oil & Gas" arguments isn't grounded in reality. There's ridiculousness on both sides of these debates. As with most issues, both sides miss important nuance, but really here it's the fact that things have changed so much that the arguments made aren't rooted in facts anymore. China is moving fast, EVs are coming. The transition is already well on it's way and the energy part will not look like the energy future. On the flip side, o&g companies have (mostly) stopped trying to spend money to deny the science. The climate change debate is settled and at least in Canada, efforts are being made to curb production emissions.

First, let's start with what the core issue is: 1) climate change is real and urgently needs to be addressed, and 2) burning fossil fuels is responsible for almost all of it. Therefore, it stands to reason that we need to stop burning fossil fuels urgently.

Number two is where most reasonable people disagree with each other. There's a lot of grey area here and many different ways to skin the cat and end up in the same place. If you disagree with number 1, go hang out with the antivaxxers, flat earthers, and other people out of touch with reality. Don't bother responding because I won't read it. I have no time for that nonsense because it's not a conversation worth having for either of us because I can't discuss facts you pretend aren't real.

One solution proposed by some petrostates and oil majors is to attach ccus to everything and continue burning stuff indefinitely. That's absurd and we'd need so much energy and so many CO2 pipelines to do it we'd never ever, ever get there. It's not a realistic solution. So we need to discuss how to phase out fossil fuels. Where some in O&G in Alberta get upset is that lots of effort is being made to lower scope 1 and 2 emissions from production, yet Canada doesn't seem to get any recognition for it. This is true. Canada has done well to decrease emissions intensity of their productions. The oil sands have really high emissions because of the energy intensive way they're extracted so they started off with a big knock against them, but have made and have plans for major reductions. Emissions from oil production are responsible for almost 15% of global ghg emissions! Reductions in this are very good!

That doesn't answer the big question though, of how and when to phase out all fossil fuels. And this is where they're aren't great concrete plans. IEA projects a peak in coal in 2026, and a peak in road fuels in 2027 with a peak in total oil demand by 2028 at 105.8 bb/d. That is with current policies and no other changes. However, in that scenario they see demand stay quite high with a long decline. This isn't good enough to even get to 2.5° warming. Therefore, we have to do better than current policy. We have a lot of technology to get most of the way there today, and it needn't overall cost much. It will require difficult conversations though because it inevitably would still require up front capital and wealth inequality is getting worse, not better so some nations will have an easier time than others.

I am of the firm belief that we shouldn't be asking oil companies to fund clean energy. It makes no sense. They're companies that invest in volatile commodity extraction with large but risky ROI. Why should they try to become companies that invest in capital projects with low but secure ROI? It's not in their wheelhouse and it doesn't align with their reason for existing and they have very little in house expertise in the fields required. That's not to say we're shouldn't welcome that investment, but we shouldn't count on it or try to make it reality with policy. We do need to hold any company accountable for spending money to influence public debate and policy in unethical ways. It's really unethical to have your own scientists ring alarm bells about climate change and then spend money to slow action and change public opinion on matters as important as this. It's it legal? Yes. Doesn't make it less loathsome or awful. We didn't try to get fishing companies to become fishery guardians when we saw Atlantic cod fisheries dying, and we don't need to save o&g companies by changing them. Work on lowering demand and let the rest sort it itself out. We do need to work on making sure the transition is fair for people working in the industry and that there are options for them when needed, but I could care less whether BP, Shell, or Suncor survive the transition and become utility companies because they wouldn't be paying the same employees at that point anyways.