In recent years, discussions about the energy transition have become major talking points.
The transition away from fossil fuels to a system dominated by renewable energy can be seen as a shift, but how it pans out remains to be seen.
Technology, finance, and international cooperation are some of the factors that affect it. All are bedeviled by uncertainty and risk.
The topics were discussed in detail during a panel moderated by CNBC's Dan Murphy.
2 billion devices are used in the energy sector.
Every device could be a potential source of vulnerability that could be exploited by bad actors.
Simonovich said that the consequences of the above happening could have cascading effects.
What we're talking about is not just the loss of data, but also a safety issue that could bring down major parts of the grid.
Simonovich argued that it was important to accelerate the energy transition if we can get it right, but also as a major source of risk.
If the planet is to shift to a low-carbon energy system, geopolitics will have a role to play.
It took the world several decades, until 2015, to arrive at a consensus that global warming is happening and it is due to greenhouse gases.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels, and was adopted in December of 2015.
The risk I see is that you need cooperative and collaborative world governments to decarbonize.
Khalidi's comments come at a time when Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shown how reliant some economies are on Russian oil and gas.
The war in Ukraine has resulted in a number of initiatives that are defined by cooperation and shared aims.
The U.S. and European Commission issued a joint statement last week about energy security.
The parties said that the U.S. would try to make sure that the EU gets at least 15 billion cubic meters of extra natural gas this year. They said this would increase in the future.
President Joe Biden said the US and EU would work together to reduce dependence on natural gas and maximize the use of renewable energy.
Any transition to an energy system and economy centered around renewables and low-carbon technologies will require a lot of money, given that fossil fuels play a major role in modern life.
Kara Mangone, global head of climate strategy at Goldman Sachs, was the person who tackled the question of where this cash should be invested. She stressed the importance of commercial viability.
It will take anywhere from 100 to 150 trillion dollars in capital, but we are nowhere near that today.
Mangone said that half of the capital would need to be focused on technologies that were already commercially viable.
The other half will need to go into carbon capture, hydrogen, direct air capture, sustainable aviation fuel, e-fuels, and technologies that are not yet being adopted at commercial scale.
There are trillion-dollar figures in a report titled Climate Finance Markets and the Real Economy that was published in late 2020. The Global Financial Markets Association Climate Finance Working Group helps inform the report.
Mangone explained how goals could be achieved in a commercially viable way.
We can't pull out financing from the oil and gas sector, metals and mining, real estate, and agriculture.
Anna Shpitsberg, deputy assistant secretary for energy transformation at the U.S. Department of State, made comments on Monday.
The oil and gas industry is critical to the transition, Shpitsberg said during a panel moderated by CNBC.
She said that they are key players in the energy system.
They are some of the ones that are putting significant investment into clean energy.
Shpitsberg argued that goals relating to methane reduction and efficiency would not be reached if critical stakeholders were not engaged.
The message has been that oil and gas companies have to be involved. We want them to be involved in the transition conversation.
Securing a successful energy transition is a huge task when you consider the current state of play. Fossil fuels are ingrained in the global energy mix, and companies continue to discover and develop oil and gas fields around the world.
According to the International Energy Agency, carbon dioxide emissions rose to their highest level in history in 2021. The IEA found that global CO2 emissions increased by 6 percent in the year 2021.
Coal use was identified as the main driver of growth by the world's leading energy authority. Coal was responsible for 40% of the growth in global CO2 emissions last year, hitting a record of 15.3 billion metric tons.
The IEA said that CO2 emissions from oil came in at over 10 billion metric tons.
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