Oil and gas must face climate change head on

Pushing for more fossil fuels is counter-productive to hydrocarbons’ important long-term role

The IEA has faced an onslaught of criticism from both the left and the right of the political spectrum since the publication of its Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector report in May 2021. However, the fiercest criticism has come—directly or indirectly—from some quarters of the oil and gas industry itself: from Saudi oil minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman calling it “La La Land” to the report by the Energy Policy Research Foundation (EPRF) labelling it as a “seal of approval… to block investment in oil and gas production by Western companies”. The EPRF describes itself as a “not-for-profit organization that studies energy economics and policy issues with special emphasi