Fossil fuel companies at CERAWeek are optimistic in the climate change era

HOUSTON, Texas — In a video message projected onto massive screens in a packed conference hall, Sultan al-Jaber, the president of the COP28 climate conference held in the United Arab Emirates last year, graciously accepted a leadership award from one of the world’s biggest energy industry conventions.

Al-Jaber, who when not running UN climate summits is also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, faced criticism from environmental groups for inviting major oil and gas companies to participate in the international climate negotiations. He also faced scrutiny for his comments that it’s not necessary to eliminate fossil fuels to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming this century to less than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) by the end of the century. But here in Houston, before a much friendlier crowd, he remained defiant.

“If the world is going to meet its climate goals, every stakeholder has to act,” al-Jaber said, with a model of a wind turbine on his desk. “Everyone had a seat at the table, everyone was invited to contribute, and everyone did contribute.”

CERAWeek by S&P Global — an annual conference of oil, gas, coal, renewable, and nuclear energy industries — returned the invitation, putting the once taboo topic of climate change in its headline.

“It is no exaggeration to say that [al-Jaber] helped the global community chart pathways to a sustainable future,” said Daniel Yergin, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning oil history The Prize and the founder of CERAWeek.

The conference isn’t meant to produce any formal agreements or treaties, but what attendees say on stage and behind closed doors often ripple through the global energy industry.

While only a sliver of the size of the last climate meeting — more than 8,000 delegates were at CERAWeek compared to more than 80,000 attendees at COP28 — the conference represents some of the most powerful companies in the world with trillions of dollars at their disposal to shape the future of global energy and the climate. The theme this year was “Multidimensional Energy Transition: Markets, climate, technology and geopolitics.”

The unwieldy title is an example of how the convention has grown in scope since it started in 1981 and how the industries it represents have begun to redefine their roles in a world constrained by rising average temperatures, yet still primarily dependent on fossil fuels. What was once a low-key meeting of oil and gas executives and analysts to talk frankly and cut deals has become a slick news-making tech conference where attendees are well fed and, after hours, well lubricated by sponsors. Think of it as Davos for the oil and gas set, hosted in the energy capital of the US.

Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

“Twenty years ago you could not have a conversation here about climate change. Full stop,” Mark Brownstein, senior vice president for energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), who has attended the conference for decades, told Vox.

By now everyone at CERAWeek has gotten the memo on global warming and understood the assignment, at least in rhetoric. The world’s largest energy firms have come to a general consensus that the world is shifting toward clean energy — but that fossil fuels are still going to be necessary for the foreseeable future. “These truths are not in conflict,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “The momentum of the clean energy transition is undeniable, even as we are the largest producer of oil and gas in the world.”

Every talk and panel discussion nodded to the energy transition, toward carbon management, efficiency, and clean tech. When it comes to energy sources — wind, solar, hydropower, natural gas, oil, hydrogen, coal, nuclear, geothermal, and even fusion — CERAWeek has truly embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But even with greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reaching levels not seen in eons and after the hottest year humans have ever measured, the fossil fuel industry whose products are driving climate change sees a bright future for itself. After all, despite the extraordinary expansion of clean energy generation, fossil fuels have only lost a small share of the global energy mix and are still expecting more growth.

The majors believe that technologies like carbon capture and storage will allow them to continue selling their wares as emissions regulations ratchet down, and that power-devouring technologies like artificial…