This year looks favorable to the world production of hydrocarbons and its exports.
The profits of large international companies such as Shell and Exxon have grown.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) presented last month its optimistic forecast for the growth of world demand for this year, highlighting the greater participation of China in these growing imports.
The key to oil demand growth this year is, according to OPEC, China's return of its mobility restrictions imposed by the epidemic and the effect this will have on the country, the region and the world.
OPEC expects demand from China to grow this year above previous forecasts.
For these reasons it is estimated that this year the world demand for oil will increase (keep in mind that China is today the world's leading economy).
Profits from the global oil and gas industry have risen in the past year, meaning they are double the average profits of recent years, according to the International Energy Agency, whose leader urged countries that depend on oil revenues oil and gas to prepare without delay to reduce their dependencies on these polluting products.
This vision does not agree with that of OPEC, which affirms that the world consumption of oil will continue to increase until the middle of the century, despite the fact that its participation in the world total of this energy consumption will decline.
At the recent meeting of the oil industry, held in Houston (Texas), which brought together thousands of participants, the present and future evolution of the energy sector was presented and considered, the difference of opinions being evident.
For example, the president of Chevron insisted that energy must continue to be increasingly accessible to consumers, beyond environmental requirements.
This position is not compatible with those who maintain the need to begin to reduce polluting emissions.
At this meeting it was evident that there is no general consensus in the international oil industry, since there are producers who are aware of the great costs involved in the increasing accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere.
An important piece of news has been the one that expresses that the European Union Parliament has decided to prohibit the sale of combustion vehicles in 2030. The recent legislative agreement seeks to reinforce the fight against climate change of the 'Fit for 55' plan, approved in 2021. The European Union has taken a very important step towards the decarbonisation of its land transport last month.
The European Parliament has given its final approval to the ban, from 2035, on the sale in European territory of new combustion cars and vans, including gasoline, diesel and hybrid ones.
It has been important that the MEPs approved this legislative agreement for the European strategy in its fight against climate change.
In recent days it became known that internal documents released by the US media in 2015 already showed that the giant Exxon Mobil had known for decades about the danger of climate change caused by fossil fuels, although later in public it denied that this was a problem.
A review now published in the journal Science, which analyzes the scientific knowledge that this oil and gas company really had about the consequences of its products on the climate, concludes that its projections anticipated precisely how the planet was going to warm from the end of the year. from the '70s.
“This is the first quantitative and systematic evaluation of the climate projections of the fossil fuel industry,” says Naomi Oreskes, a professor at Harvard University and one of the authors of the paper, who states: “Between 1977 and 2003, the Exxon scientists modeled and predicted global warming with impressive skill and precision.
But in public the company spent decades denying that same climate science."
The climate is changing as a consequence of human activities, mainly due to the burning of fossils and deforestation.
The past nine years have been the warmest since modern records began in 1880. This means that Earth in 2022 was about 1.11 degrees warmer than the late 19th century average.
Additional warming is expected in the coming years if strong internationally agreed measures are not implemented.
The results will be a higher incidence of extreme weather events.
Climate impacts are already worsening across the planet.
Unless more ambitious measures are taken, the impacts of climate change will be even more devastating in the coming years.
It is worrisome to note that the commitments assumed by nations, according to the Paris Agreement, are insufficient to avoid crossing the critical barrier of 1.5 C. At the current rate of permanent increases, we would cross the critical barrier of cumulative emissions in just 15 years.
Polluting emissions, which are rapidly contributing to the increase in temperature throughout the planet, are generated by the consumption of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), plus accelerated deforestation, thus increasing temperatures, storms, floods and droughts.
Climate change is the main problem of a global nature facing all of humanity in the 21st century.
We are facing a growing global threat to the Earth that demands to be faced through actions implemented simultaneously by all countries, within the framework of international negotiations.
This threat to the global environment requires a global solution with commitments from all nations.
Former Secretary of Energy. Argentine Academy of Environmental Sciences
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