All children believe in Santa Claus at the beginning but eventually their world view grows to the point where the illusion is inconsistent with what they see around them or their friends make fun of them because their beliefs do not evolve. In an adult world though we also have conspiracy theories and entrenched beliefs that do not fit with larger world views. These are typically the beliefs of families or communities which we are part of.
The public perception of the Oil and Gas business has been rocky for decades and for those who have worked in it the disparity between their understanding of it and the image projected by eco activists is night and day. Politically, in Canada, that is an east vs west disparity.
Quebec has refused to allow development of a relatively small gas discovery around Anticosti Island, shut down its only nuclear power plant, and cancelled the only oil and gas pipelines planned to cross Quebec despite the fact that it receives oil shipped up the St. Lawrence on a regular basis. Meanwhile three Canadian provinces are encouraging nuclear development, and the western most provinces are within a year of exporting LNG and Alberta oil into the Pacific Ocean economies. While Quebec is staunchly green, oil use in the world expands, the US exports large amounts of LNG, attendees at COP27 wring their hands in frustration, and the world moves on without them.
To anyone within the oil industry, natural gas has helped reduce CO2 emissions by replacing coal use to generate electricity. It has half the emissions per kilowatt of energy produced and provides a backup for intermittent renewables such as wind turbines and solar panels. For eco activists however the methane produced has 40 times the heat trapping power of CO2. From within the oil and gas industry, western Canada has had reporting requirements for venting ( vs flaring ) of emissions for two decades which has largely been ignored by the critics. From an economics perspective, methane is also money in the bank for gas producers and therefore there is every reason to capture all the natural gas they can. Lastly, most natural gas in western Canada comes with significant amounts of hydrogen sulphide which is deadly in parts per million. Any leakage is therefore a work place hazard. NASA seems to have confirmed that methane emissions from the oiled gas sector is not much of an issue in North America, or it at least is largely overshadowed by Asian and African emissions.
We seem caught within our own echo chambers on climate change but the boundaries are starting to blur. Few of us reject the importance of climate change anymore. More environmental activists are also accepting nuclear power as an acceptable alternative. We have had a decade where the environmental movement has disparaged oil demand as transitory only to see it increase. Electrical grid problems have also occurred in areas with very high renewable acceptance, either because of the move to renewables (California’s case) or in spite of the move to renewables ( Texas’ case). It has been a decade or two of renewables promotion and the technologies have either proven themselves or not. COP27 is broadly considered to be a failure, if not of the environmental consensus, at least of the implementation.
In Canada, oil and gas companies are actively pursuing GHG reduction strategies. The Liberal government, perhaps reluctantly, has accepted nuclear power in the form of SMRs as a contributing technology. Green is finally becoming less of an ideology and more of a strategy.