https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/anti-oil-lobby-faces-reality-check-global-demand-set-break-records
This week, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said that investing in new oil and gas production was “delusional”, calling on “all financial actors to abandon fossil fuel finance” and focus on renewables instead.
But the UN’s most senior official did not stop there.
Guterres then went on to say that “The only true path to energy security, stable power prices, prosperity and a livable planet lies in abandoning polluting fossil fuels — especially coal — and accelerating the renewables-based energy transition.”
This is a sentiment shared by the head of the IEA, too, on numerous occasions. Like Guterres, the IEA’s Fatih Birol is a staunch supporter of the energy transition, which he sees as the only way forward.
Unlike Guterres, Birol seems willing to allow for the fact that we still need oil, and lots of it.
Last month, Birol warned of even higher oil prices during the summer because of strong demand, expressing hope that several large oil producers would increase their output this year.
“I very much hope that the increase coming from [the] United States, from Brazil, Canada this year, [will] be accompanied by the increase coming from the key producers in Middle East and elsewhere,” Birol told CNBC in an interview on the sidelines of the Davos gathering.
“Otherwise, we have only one hope that we don’t have big trouble in the oil markets in summer, which is hoping … that the Chinese demand remains very weak.”
In other words, the IEA’s head, unlike the head of the UN, acknowledged the fact that the world is consuming ever-growing volumes of oil, and the fact that these volumes cannot come from wind parks and solar farms in what could be seen as a big win for realism.