A Big Oil Reality Check for the Energy Transition

This year's COP28 on Tuesday ran into overtime as participating countries sought to clinch a last-minute agreement on a draft document detailing a global commitment to phase out hydrocarbons. The reason for the overtime was the strong opposition to such a text by oil-producing countries. Some placed the blame singularly on Saudi Arabia as the leader of OPEC, and others blamed the whole cartel plus other oil producers. What none of the blame-layers appear to have realized is that another course of action is impossible for oil-producing…