BP's Self-Serving Energy Outlook

When you ask a large fossil fuel extractor like BP (didn't they tell us BP stood for “Beyond Petroleum?”) what the future will look like, of course you get what they want you to see. Steve Hanley writes in BP Energy Outlook Sees The World Through Oil Colored Glasses: The BP report expects renewables to account for only 9% of the world’s total energy needs by 2035. That is far lower than many proponents of alternative energy anticipate. Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the International Renewable Energy Agency both predict renewable energy could supply as much as 30% of global energy demand by 2030, especially if the accords reached in Paris are implemented by major emissions sources like the US, China, and India. “This is a story of how an oil and gas company predicts the rosy prospects of oil and gas companies,” explained Greg Muttitt of Oil Change International. “BP would like us to believe that government action on climate will fail, that clean technologies will fizzle, and that the future of energy will still be based on the carbon fuels of the past. “Every year, BP has predicted that the growth in renewable energy will slow down, and each time it has been wrong. This year, again it massively downplays renewables, estimating they will provide a mere 15% of world electricity in 2030 – in spite of wind and solar achieving grid parity in most of the world, and in spite of government action arising from the Paris Agreement.” “Dressed in a veneer of concern about climate change, in fact BP’s outlook is a public relations exercise, designed to boost fossil fuels and undermine public faith in clean alternatives. Meanwhile it deflects responsibility to government or to coal companies, to distract from its own extraction of oil and gas. This is not a credible view of the future of energy.”

Posted in: Wall Street Trading