The «green» transition is a form of neocolonialism towards developing countries, while the colonizers themselves — the developed countries — have made the greatest contribution to the climate crisis, accounting for the majority of emissions. And governments, businesses and investors in Western countries are beginning to revise their approach to the «green» agenda, which is too expensive. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin spoke about these global trends in the energy sector in his report «Energy Transition and Phantom Barrels: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here. Not everyone will be taken into the bright future of global energy!”, which he presented at the Energy Panel at the XXVII SPIEF.
Photo: SPIEF-2024.
“Under the pretext of “green” transition in practice, the construction of a “green” neocolonialism», – stated the head of the company.
He cited expert data: in the period from 1990 to 2015, from developing countries to developed countries “leaked” resources worth more than $240 trillion. “The energy transition, that is, the announced energy transition program, is a legendary powerful sanctions barrier for 88% of the Earth’s population, for everyone who is not part of the “golden billion.” These are, in fact, unannounced sanctions that are being applied in the meantime,” – he noted.
The combination of energy shortages resulting from the energy transition and a wide range of direct sanctions, as well as unfair competition, has led to market imbalance. An example is the restrictions imposed by the United States on Venezuela, Iran and Russia. These sanctions “affected a total of nearly 18 million barrels of oil per day and helped the United States capture significant market share.” As a result, energy resources have become the leading US export.
According to the head of Rosneft, the White House uses the following approach in relation to Russia: the United States seeks to reduce the oil revenues of the Russian Federation, which implies “squeezing out seaborne exports of Russian oil from the world market.” Unilateral actions of the American regulator lead to volatility and unpredictability of the energy market.
Despite the “green” energy market being imposed on the whole world. agenda, it is the developed countries, which today represent a minority of the world's population, that have made the greatest contribution to the climate crisis.
In support of his words, Igor Sechin noted that at the current moment, according to the UN and non-governmental research institutes, developed countries account for 65% of the total emissions produced over the past 200 years, and the richest 10% of the world's population is responsible for half of all CO2 emissions. At the same time, the richest 1% of the planet's population accounts for twice as many carbon dioxide emissions as the poorest 50%, and the entire African continent produces less than 4% of the world's emissions.
The head of the oil company emphasized: “The energy transition must be balanced and aimed at satisfying the interests of the majority, which will ensure growth in energy consumption in the coming years, that is, developing countries.”
At the same time, according to the speaker, the Europeans themselves are already noticing , that “their countries’ climate policies are hitting their own pockets, causing rising prices for energy resources, real estate, transport and food.” As a result, the European green bill the agenda will soon exceed half a trillion euros, and this is far from the final figure.
“Individual EU countries, such as Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden and others, are already ready to reconsider their approach to achieving the goals of the so-called Green Pact for Europe. And the World Bank, in its recent report, moved up the deadline for achieving green goals. moving forward ten years, to 2060. We are confident that emissions targets will be revised several times,” – stated the head of the company.
Speaking about representatives of big business, he noted that in the context of revising their own approach to the “green agenda” Shell has already abandoned its target of reducing emissions by 45% by 2035 and plans to cut staff in its climate change departments.
In addition, the “green transition” negatively affected the position of British BP. The company's bet on leadership in this industry has not worked, and since the announcement of a new strategy to achieve carbon neutrality in 2020, the company's share prices have declined by 3% against the backdrop of growth in the performance of European and American supermajors by more than 20-60%. “Investors openly call BP shares “dead money,” – Sechin noted.
In this regard, the management of the British company has already publicly stated that the goal of reducing production by 2030 can be adjusted. The head of Rosneft noted that over the year, BP's total debt increased by 12% and at the end of the 1st quarter of 2024 exceeded $64 billion.
However, according to him, in the “green transition” Investors are also disappointed.
So, the largest financial market operator and apologist for the energy transition – BlackRock – finds other uses for its investments other than “green” ones. technologies. Including the American military-industrial complex.
«Investments in the five largest defense industry companies alone exceed $20 billion, originally intended for the “green” transition», – stated the speaker.