VIENNA — Even as U.N. climate-conference delegates met near Paris on Friday seeking ways to reduce the globe’s dependence on high-carbon fuels like oil, some of the world’s biggest petroleum producers vowed to keep pumping flat out.
VIENNA — Even as U.N. climate-conference delegates met near Paris on Friday seeking ways to reduce the globe’s dependence on high-carbon fuels like oil, some of the world’s biggest petroleum producers vowed to keep pumping flat out.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said Friday that it would keep producing oil at current levels, which are estimated to exceed 31 million barrels a day.
But with petroleum prices continuing to plummet and world leaders intent on steadily reducing the burning of oil and natural gas, OPEC might be celebrating what history could show to be Big Oil’s last hurrah. Some OPEC members, including the United Arab Emirates, have acknowledged that their economies need to diversify and wean themselves from an oil-rich diet.
In fact, the United Arab Emirates’ delegation to the climate conference has pledged to increase their use of clean energy sources — a mere 0.2 percent of the mix last year — to 24 percent by 2021.
The United Arab Emirates, whose seven members include Abu Dhabi, plan to use their oil wealth to lay the groundwork for the post-petroleum era — whenever it comes.
“I need to be living in a world where my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren will be able to live in a healthy environment,” said Ahmad Belhoul, chief executive of a state-owned Abu Dhabi company, Masdar, that is at work on various solar-energy projects for the government.
But, meanwhile, the pumping continues unabated.
The dozen OPEC countries, and other big oil producers like Mexico and Russia, find themselves in a double bind — pressed by the new low-carbon ethos represented by the climate conference and squeezed by a global oil glut that has caused prices to plunge more than 50 percent since early last year. New supplies, led by shale oil from the United States, have caused the dollar-value oil revenues of OPEC, Mexico and Russia to fall by half since 2014. Their response is to keep producing and selling, with an almost fire-sale desperation.
“Individual countries are trying to get every bit of revenue they can in this tough situation,” said Spencer Welch, an analyst at IHS, a research firm.