The Future of Fossil Fuels

“We can pontificate about the energy transition and carbon reduction all we want,” says Charles McConnell, Executive Director, Carbon Management and Energy Sustainability at the University of Houston. “But if countries are short of energy, watch out!”

While there has been a lot of talk of the low carbon future, McConnell believes that fossil fuels will continue to play an essential role in helping the world meet its energy requirements. The key to enabling the Net Zero future will be to decarbonize operations and products, he says.

McConnell has decades of industry experience and served as Former Assistant Secretary of Energy, a politically appointed role to execute policy and operate the Fossil Energy Department. In this interview, he offers his perspectives on the challenges of the energy transition, what he sees as the way forward and why he believes altruism will come out in the wash in the coming years.

Diana Davis, Oil and Gas IQ: Climate change, reducing carbon emissions and the energy transition - these are topics that have been around for years, and this past year it feels like suddenly the oil and gas industry is paying some serious attention to them. From your perspective, how and why has the conversation shifted?

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