KUNA : OPEC chief: Growing energy demand requires reducing carbon emissions – General – 26/04/2024 – Kuwait News Agency

KUNA : OPEC chief: Growing energy demand requires reducing carbon emissions – General – 26/04/2024 – Kuwait News Agency

VIENNA, April 26 (KUNA) -- The pace at which global energy demand is growing means that alternatives cannot replace oil at the necessary scale, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said, adding that rather than calling for an end to oil, the focus should be on reducing emissions.

A recent report on oil demand by "The Economist" exemplifies a worrying trend of narratives that increasingly use terminology like - the end of oil - while simultaneously underplaying or omitting key details regarding current and future oil demand, Al Ghais wrote in an article distributed Friday by the OPEC Secretariat.

"Such assertions, despite all evidence to the contrary, are all the more dangerous given their potential to foster energy policies that stoke energy chaos. What if investments in supply fall as a result, but demand for oil keeps increasing, as we are seeing today?", he wondered.

Although the main goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change is to reduce emissions - not to choose energy sources - it feels like this has been forgotten, replaced by rigid narratives to reduce demand for hydrocarbons without thinking through the effects on energy security, socio-economic development, or reducing energy poverty, he elaborated.

These kinds of narratives forget