Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 11
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
OPEC welcomes development of renewables, said Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, OPEC Secretary General, at the Oil & Money Conference, Session: Strategies for the Energy Transition: ‘Perspectives on a Changing Energy Landscape’, London, Trend reports.
He pointed out that OPEC takes climate change extremely seriously.
“Renewables are coming of age, with wind and solar expanding fast, but even by 2040 in our World Oil Outlook (WOO) they are only estimated to make up around 19 percent of the global energy mix,” he said.
Barkindo pointed out that with nuclear expected to be at just over 6 percent and coal at just over 21 percent by 2040, it means that oil and gas combined are forecast to still supply over 50 percent of the world’s energy needs by 2040, with oil at around 28 percent and gas at 25 percent.
“From the perspective of electric vehicles, there is also no doubt that they will continue to see expansion in the transportation sector. We see this in our WOO with the share of electric vehicles in the total road transportation fleet projected to expand to around 13 percent in 2040. Again, we support their development in a sustainable manner,” he explained.
OPEC secretary general noted that in the period to 2040, fuel efficiency improvements are expected to result in a far greater reduction in oil demand, than the increasing penetration of alternative fuel vehicles.
“For oil and gas, the environmental challenge is not oil and gas themselves. It is the emissions that come from burning them,” he said.
“We are believers that solutions can be found in technologies, such as Carbon Capture Utilization & Storage (CCUS) and others, that reduce and ultimately eliminate these emissions. We will need a very broad portfolio of emission removal technologies to tackle climate change.”
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