Money, lobbyists, inertia: Why fossil fuels are so hard to quit?

NEW YORK: When the international community agreed to transition away from fossil fuels at the 2023 COP28 global climate summit, some hailed the moment as the beginning of the end for oil.

But little progress has been made since then, even though the vast majority of scientists agree there’s overwhelming evidence of global warming and that it is driven chiefly by the burning of fossil fuels.

The Middle East war, meanwhile, has shown that the world is as dependent as ever on “black gold,” with the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz holding the global economy and energy supply in a chokehold.

Some have pointed to the ripple effects of the war as yet another reason to decrease humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels. But several global trends indicate the 2023 promise is still a way away from coming true.

Among them is the agenda of United States President Donald Trump, whose energy slogan is “drill, baby, drill” and has intervened with military force in two countries with vast crude reserves: Venezuela and Iran.

But why is it so hard for countries to quit oil? Here are some factors:

It’s the economy

If financial markets rise and fall with the fluctuating price of crude, it’s because they have deep ties to assets linked to hydrocarbons.

“We cannot make the transition by shutting down fossil fuel companies overnight, because that would be an unprecedented worldwide economic disaster,” Claudio Angelo, the international policy coordinator at Brazil’s Climate Observatory, told AFP.

The economies of some countries like Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are completely dependent on oil.

But Angelo said that even for other countries with more diverse economic models, like Brazil, removing crude oil exports would be enough to tank the economy.

Political will

Bill Hare, director of a policy institute called Climate Analytics, said some oil-exporting countries like the US, Canada and Australia have the means to undertake a green energy transition.

“For these countries, I think it’s a matter of political will,” he told AFP.

But with Trump back in Washington, along with a host of other right-wing leaders assuming power around the globe, economic interests are once again being prioritised over the issue of global warming — with some denying the climate phenomenon even exists.

“There is a whole vision of the West, led by the US, of going back to a model that’s already been tried,” said Leonardo Stanley, an associate researcher at the Centre for the Study of State and Society in Buenos Aires.

“The oil and gas sector is the most powerful lobbying interest on Earth,” Climate Observatory’s Angelo said.

“For 30 years, they have been playi