Renewable and non-renewable sources are expected to complement each other, at least for several decades.
Last August, the tech giant Google held its seventh camp in which the “Club of 0.001” participates, a select group of celebrities, world leaders, and entrepreneurs who are invited each year to a European hotel to discuss global issues of interest. The private meeting with the big billionaires and the world elite discussed this year, behind closed doors, about climate change.
The figures from this meeting are striking: the leaders traveled to Italy for an event that lasted three days and, according to available information, had more than 100 private jets, multiple helicopters, sports cars, yachts, and limousines to transport these personalities, who arrived at the venue with all the luxuries and comforts required for them and their close circles.
The event is estimated to have cost around US$20 million, a sum similar, coincidentally, to that offered that same month by the G7 to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to address the emergency of the fires in the Amazon.
This fact may not be relevant compared to the important things that happen daily in the world and in our country, but it contains within itself enormous symbolism related to a topic that should matter to all of us: climate change, which this week is news in the context of the United Nations climate summit in New York.
There are then two real issues: the first is the growing concern about climate change, which requires the imminent commitment of all actors in society to stop it and, if possible, reverse it, that is, to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
On the other hand, there is a global population of more than seven billion people, and growing, that urgently needs to agree on the type of sustainable development that is desired moving forward.
The vast majority of the population are people who do not have the privileges of the jet-set that discussed this issue in Italy. There are countries, like ours, that depend on hydrocarbons for their energy security and to generate national and regional income, and to have available wealth to distribute.
That is to say: they live in societies with high incomes and basic needs met, and are able to pay for expensive energy; while other countries, like Colombia, finance the bulk of their investment, the energy transition, productive diversification, and especially social development, with the income from hydrocarbons.
One of the arguments against fossil fuels is to leave the existing oil and gas buried underground, a moral dilemma for those who attack the industry with a megaphone, but do so from the comfort that it provides them. The first step would be for these people to change their patterns of life, even if it affects their quality, to set an example and show the world what future they envision.
How to reconcile those two worlds? The reality is that the global energy system is mostly based on fossil fuels, of which gas and oil are fundamental. That was the world we built and the one that has given us quality of life, leaving behind slavery, animal traction, and wood combustion.
It is impossible to have attended that three-day meeting without having benefited from the hydrocarbon industry that many of them despise.
It is impossible not to have a relationship with oil and gas in our daily lives, in direct daily uses such as transportation and gas for cooking, and indirect uses in thousands of products that use petroleum derivatives as raw materials. 80% of the goods we consume daily derive from hydrocarbons.
It is easy from the discourse to say that the oil industry should end, to turn off the switch and then what? The transition is not only energy-related, it is also economic and social, changing production systems, lifestyle.
If those who fight against the industry daily are not able to change their consumption patterns and their comfort, we cannot expect anything different from those who have not had such privilege or benefit daily from this industry, the thousands of employees, the citizens who use air, sea, and land transportation, the regions that receive royalties, the most vulnerable populations.
All sectors of society must commit to finding solutions to face this real problem, but the solutions must be comprehensive, covering all the previously mentioned dimensions.
In the particular case of the hydrocarbon industry in Colombia, the Comprehensive Climate Change Management Plan of the energy sector (issued by the Ministry of Mines and Energy) is the first sectoral program that has a series of activities and goals to combat the effects of climate change.
This sector is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to mitigation and adaptation to climate change, and being a leader in the fight against causes of this phenomenon such as deforestation.
An orderly, intelligent energy transition involves the responsible use of hydrocarbons as a source of income and energy security.
Renewable and non-renewable sources are meant to complement each other, at least for several decades. Understanding this is fundamental to reconcile both worlds: accepting that environmental protection does not contradict opportunities and well-being, even for those who traveled on private jets to Italy.
Colombian Association of Oil and Gas