Back when Energy Intelligence held its first Oil & Money conference in 1980,the world was gripped by events in Iran and the broader Middle East.Nearly 40 years later,Mideast geopolitical risk is still a burning issue.Recent attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities as part of a wider Iran-US/Saudi confrontation are again forcing the industry to weigh up those risks against the region's indisputable energy riches(WGI Sep.25'19).Much has changed,of course.Back then,Qatar and Australia,now the world's top two LNG exporters,had yet to produce a molecule of the super-chilled fuel.Some were talking of coal as the bridge to a nuclear-dominated future.The wave of megamergers that reshaped the industry was about 20 years away.The US shale boom had still to happen.But perhaps the biggest change has been the explosion in concerns about climate change.Forty years ago,the issue was an abstract concept for most people.Today,public consciousness is acute,opening the industry to increasingly hostile scrutiny.Political and societal pressure is mounting to move much more quickly from an energy system based on fossil fuels to one based on renewable energy.This year's Oil & Money conference,Strategies for the Energy Transition,takes place against the background of an increasingly polarized climate debate and more extreme tactics by activists like Extinction Rebellion.Action is growing among young people,the consumers of tomorrow,galvanized by leaders such as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg.
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