In 1856, a scientist, named Eunice Foote,
conducted an experiment. She filled one tube with regular air, and
another with carbon dioxide, put thermometers in them, and
placed them in the sun. And she noticed, the tube of carbon dioxide
got a lot hotter, and stayed hot longer. She published her results noting that
"an atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth
a high temperature". Three years later, Edwin Drake struck oil
in Western Pennsylvania. A hundred years after that first well, the
American oil industry celebrated its centennial. And they invited the physicist Edward Teller,
one of the inventors of the atomic bomb, to make a speech about the future of energy. “We probably have to look for additional
fuel supplies,” he told the crowd. “Because the extra carbon emitted from burning
fossil fuels causes a greenhouse effect.” Which, he believed, would be sufficient to
melt the ice cap and submerge New York. By 1965, scientists were confident
enough to formally warn U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson A decade later, Exxon’s own scientists were
making grim predictions. By 1988, it was
front page news. And since then, we’ve kept pumping
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate. We have a world economy today that depends
on fossil fuels for most of its energy. A third of it from oil. It's a tremendous irony that the very substances
that helped us achieve this level of development today are, now, the very substances that endanger
the future of civilization as we know it. Governments are starting to agree that we
shouldn't let the world warm more than one-point-five degrees centigrade, and we're on track
to blow past that by twenty-thirty. So, why is it so hard to turn off the tap? And can we do it in time? Industrial nations have developed a great
dependency on oil. It has added a new freedom to our lives. The invaluable stocks of oil
in these exotic islands. Their wealth is cracking the old life of Arabia
wide open. Nigerian government love the oil
more than our lives. Increasing amounts of carbon dioxide
surround us. If man continues to abuse his environment,
Earth too may become barren. The story of oil is a story of geopolitical
clash, technological advancement and intense competition. The story of oil is a story of inequality. It’s a story of dominance. The Nigeria in which I was born in was just a
couple of years before the ending of the British colonial rule. At the time, it was an agricultural economy. Cotton from the north, cacao from the west,
and rubber from the mid-west. And in the area where Nnimmo grew up, fishing. The Niger Delta is an area that is crisscrossed
by water bodies, creek streams, rivers, estuaries which is the breeding ground for most fish
in the Gulf of Guinea. It was so fertile, fishermen could just
leave their traps at high tide and pick them up at low tide. And in the evenings... Children would sit around in the moonlight,
and the elders would share stories. They didn’t know they were sitting on one
of the most oil-rich regions on Earth. Until the British granted Shell and BP an
exclusive permit to explore for oil. They struck black gold in 1956. Nigerians were extremely hopeful that the
discovery of oil in their would bring about positive changes in their economic wellbeing,
in the health conditions of the people in terms of employment and everything. And just a few years later, Nigeria won independence. The future looked bright. After all, fossil fuels had transformed
other countries. The world’s wealthiest nations had once
been much poorer. The amount of work a person could do was the
amount they could do with their hands possibly helped by a horse or mule. Coal was the first discovery
that changed all that. Ancient organisms in oceans and swamps had
soaked up the power of the sun. Their fossils compressed over millions of
years into coal, and a mile or more down into natural gas and crude oil. Burning coal, this time-capsule of the sun’s
energy, helped Britain become the first industrialized nation and the most powerful empire
the word had ever seen. And then, oil came along. And that stared off this kind of boom. It was discovered that gasoline, which had
been kind of this waste product when they refined oil, was actually
a very good fuel for cars. Oil was the most energy-packed liquid source
of power that you could get your hands on. Right from the very beginning, it was very
important to the British navy who wanted to have access to British-controlled oil. It started as a syndicate of private investors
that went on a journey and an adventure to find oil the in the foothills of the
Zagros mountains in Persia. That was the start of the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Later renamed, British Petroleum. And they were just in time. The first world war began with cavalry charges
and people on horses, and it ended with airplanes, with tanks, with trucks. When the allied navy switched to using oil
instead of coal, those ships could go further before refueling. Oil put the world in motion. People were finding newfound freedom driving
all over the place, flying all over the place. It’s pulled millions of people out of poverty. What oil did was really create
the modern world. Power plants were built. Roads were built. Gas stations were built. Refineries were built. Everybody wanted investment in oil and gas. But the profits were lopsided. The ocean of crude oil underneath
Persia’s desert led the way to the Middle East oil boom. Iran was making just a fraction of the profits
from their own oil while the British raked in the rest. And they decided they were sick of that deal. Long-smoldering Iranian nationalists made
clear their intention to seize the oil industry and expropriate the British company. So, in 1953, Britain and the U.S.
engineered a coup, overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected leader
to install the Shah. Because they felt that he was more amenable
to having a great relationship with the West. Which is how a young Lord Brown ended up there. Yeah, I spent many years as a child in Iran
when my father was working in the oil industry. And when he turned eighteen,
he started working for BP himself. I joined the oil industry believing
it was a place where you could solve problems that no one had solved before. How could you use oil to go further and farther? At the time, BP was one of seven companies
from just three countries that controlled 85% of the world’s oil reserves. And, over in Nigeria, they quickly learned
that oil didn’t mean prosperity for everyone. Under colonial rule, the British had forced
diverse states into a single nation. And, after independence, Nimmo's home region
announced it was seceding. As a young child, I did not fully understand
what was at stake. To me, the most exciting thing was that there
was going to be a new nation called Biafra. But this region encompassed most of
the Niger Delta and its oil reserves. So, when the Nigerian government declared
war, the British gave their support. My village was, more or less, a warfront. The government blockaded the region. It’s estimated that more than a million
civilians died of starvation. I still hear voices in my head, sometimes,
of people asking for help, crying for food. It’s not something that you
forget in a hurry. Biafra surrendered in 1970. The next year, Nigeria joined OPEC, an alliance
of oil-producing nations that wanted to take back control of their resources. And, in the 70s, they wielded their
power, raising oil prices, with some countries, boycotting the U.S. for their
military support of Israel. It suddenly turned into a crisis and a shock
to the political order. Gasoline stations ran dry. Airlines cut back flight schedules. Factories were forced to close. And, in 1979, when the Iranians
overthrew the Shah and took back control of their oil prices went through the roof again. And while that was bad for oil-consumers... Oh, it's ridiculous, you know. You know, it's... You just don't know where it's gonna stop. It was great for oil producers. Nigeria became one ofthe wealthiest
countries in Africa. But after that 70s boom, oil prices
crashed, and so did Nigeria’s economy. The idea of the resource curse is that countries
don't necessarily do better just because they have an abundance of natural resources. It can throw off the currency valuation. Make other industries less competitive. And cause economic turmoil and corruption. The problem is not the resource. The problem is how the resource is exploited. It's one thing for a country to get oil revenues. It's another thing is who gets the money
and where does it go? A large chunk of that has been taken out by
transnational corporations. And the money that stays goes to the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation, which is owned by the government, and is also in charge of
regulating the country’s oil industry. So, we have an operator who is also a regulator. And since independence, billions have disappeared. That level of corruption, it corrupts, not
just people economically it corrupts the political system. And there were other costs. In the Niger Delta, over 50 years of spillage
has created 27,000 miles of toxic oil swamps. Kids are swimming in water
covered in crude oil. Life expectancy is at 41 years, maybe
one of the lowest in the entire world. Fishermen can no longer just leave their traps
at high tide. You have fisher folks who go into the rivers
and toil all day, all night, and catch nothing. And no more moonlit nights. The gas flares set up by the oil corporations
run 24 hours every day. And on top of all that, Nigeria is a hot,
dry country which means it’s more sensitive to rising temperatures. And, as of 2020, the global temperature
has increased by more than one degree centigrade. Heat waves are getting stronger, more frequent
and more deadly. It is powering hurricanes that intensify more
quickly. Wildfires are burning much greater area. Climate change is not responding to our annual
emissions, what we’re putting out this year. It’s responding to our cumulative emissions. And so, the rich countries caused the problems. We are the ones who put out all these
carbon emissions over all these years. But developing countries are facing
the brunt of the cost. It’s already pushed millions of people
to flee their homes. The clock is ticking, and we can really wonder
whether there's any hope that we can pull this off or whether we've come to the precipice
as, as a human race. What’s at risk? Not the planet, it will survive. What’s at risk is us. The world emits around fifty-billion tons
of greenhouse gases a year more than it ever has. And governments agree we need to
get to net zero by 2050. And achieve carbon neutrality. We’re gonna move to net zero
in a transition in all countries. Strong aspiration to reach net zero... Significantly reducing emissions. Legislation, uh, for net zero. Nigeria has rolled out institutional frameworks
to cut emissions by 20%. This issue is not like the Coronavirus
where you need one vaccine to deal with one virus and its variants. This is a very broad issue that needs
lots of solutions. And it's going to require a lot of technology
that really hasn't been developed yet. But there have been dramatic changes. Wind and solar power are now cheaper
than coal in a lot of countries. Battery technology is improving rapidly. Governments are investing in more hydropower
and nuclear plants. Electric cars are getting cheaper every year. And for long-haul ships and planes, engineers
are working on biofuels and liquid hydrogen. And people are working on solutions
for every piece of this pie. And the current goal isn’t to get to
zero carbon emissions. People are targeting net-zero. Net-zero. They’re saying, we will produce carbon,
but we will off-set it. By restoring forests, wetlands. Techniques in the ocean. Which can help soak up more carbon. Or carbon-capture technology,
which is still expensive. And that’s an issue with
a lot of these solutions. So many governments are trying
to tip the balance. More than 40 counties have a price on carbon
to make burning fossil fuels more costly. In over the past decade, the U.S. has been
moving from coal to natural gas the result of fracking. The U.S. went from being the
world's largest importer of oil to the world's largest producer of oil. And the natural gas plants the U.S. has been
building, are major investments in a fossil fuel future. But it’s helped the country
significantly reduce emissions. And the emissions are dropping in Europe too. But global emissions are not. When you look at where emissions are growing
right now, all of that is happening in the developing world. Even if the United States and Europe all work
together to fix the problem, we’re still not there unless we bring
the developing world along because that’s where the emissions of the future are. Without keeping emissions down
in the developing world, we’ll all fry. As a Nigerian and as an African, it's very,
very tough to see people living in extreme poverty and tell them that, you know, let’s
wait a few years till we get the best possible solution
to get you out of that. The average young person in Africa, wants
to have the same amount of energy as the average young person in America. They want to have the same type of opportunities,
and energy is that golden thread that hinders people to reach their full potential. While Nigeria’s land is energy rich... It's the country that has the largest
energy access deficit in the world. In a country of, around, two hundred million people almost half don't have access to electricity. And for those who do... Every day at nine o’clock in the morning,
all the power supply goes off where I live. It comes back at two PM and then it goes off
again at eight PM. So, most businesses rely on diesel-powered
generators to keep the lights on. There’s eight hundred million people around
the world that do not have access to energy. And to have enough energy to live
a full and dignified life. It’s not an inconvenience. It’s a difference between life and death
for a lot of people. They need to be able to develop, to have electricity
and infrastructure like we do. But today, we know that there’s better ways
to do that than the ways we did it two or three hundred years ago. So, you hear about leapfrogging. That developing countries can just jump over
the technologies that the wealthy world used to get wealthy. Instead, they’ll develop based on renewables. There’s a bit of a hypocrisy with developed
countries asking countries that currently do not have that much money to leapfrog and
transition out of something that they’re still doing. Let’s say I have an Auntie in Lagos Island,
and she takes a public bus from home to her business every single day. She's been saving up money
to buy a little two-door car which probably runs on diesel or petrol. And she says, well, I don't have any money
to buy an electric car and you say no, you have to continue on the bus
till you get the electric car. That is what energy transition
looks like now in Africa. Before you can tell the developing world,
you know, don’t use fossil don't use coal, you have to have
financing behind that. For Africa to actually transition, experts
say it would take an investment of $70 billion every year. The global North should pay a climate-debt
for the exploitation that has gone on for so many years. Those who created the problem, have a duty
to invest in making this happen. And when global leaders met
in Paris in 2015, they agreed. The landmark Paris Climate Accord included
something called the Green Climate Fund a way for wealthy countries to help
developing nations transition. They pledged to give a hundred billion a year
by 2020. And we are nowhere near getting that. They’ve fallen short by ninety billion. Some wealthier countries are investing billions
in clean energy projects across Africa. But they’re investing even more
in fossil fuels. In 2020, Britain’s Prime Minister
addressed a UK-Africa summit. There’s no point in the UK reducing
the amount of coal we burn if we then trundle over to Africa and line our
pockets by encouraging African states to use more of it. Is there? But days later, it came out that 90% of the energy deals
that Britain had made that week were in fossil fuel projects. And the pattern continues. China has made wind and solar technologies
much cheaper. But they're also still investing in coal plants. And recently, the U.S. has invested $9 billion
in fossil fuels around the world most in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the streets of wealthy countries are
getting cleaner, with cars that are more fuel-efficient or electric, a lot of these old, fuel-guzzling
models aren’t vanishing from the face of the Earth. They’re exported to countries
like Nigeria, because they’re the only kinds of cars most people there can afford. Africa is basically seen as a dumping ground
for technologies. And though Nigeria is the largest oil producer
on the continent, the few refineries they have are closed or dysfunctional. So, they export their crude oil around the
world and import most of their fuel from the Netherlands and Belgium. But it’s not the same stuff that they burn. Investigators found that diesel samples contained
sulfur levels 204 times what’s allowed under European fuel standards. There’s a lot being invested in
destruction in the world today. The challenge the world faces now is to move
from a system of inequality to a system that is more just and more fair. I certainly feel ownership for both
the benefits of oil and gas and the issues including climate change. Back in 1997, Lord Browne made a speech
that shocked the oil industry. There is a discernable
human influence on the climate. The oil world reacted badly, and declared
that I had, quote, left the church. But now, the world’s oil giants are also
acknowledging we need to get to net zero. They see which way the political winds are
blowing and they’re going with them. They must contribute to the solution, not
just hope the word sorry can get you out of the penalty box. Most companies have a choice to make. But overall, these oil companies
have chosen oil. Renewables make up less than one percent
of their investments. One report estimates that in 2030,
most of the world’s oil giants will actually be producing more oil than they do today. And while private companies once ruled the
world, government owned ones now produce half the world’s oil and gas. And many of their economies are
largely dependent on them. Countries that are very economically dependent
on oil, face a real challenge. Their production tends to be cheaper
than anybody else’s. So, they'll probably be the last people,
as it were, to turn out the lights on this industry. The $88 trillion world economy has
been based on an energy system in which oil has the preeminent role. Other energy transitions took centuries. This is meant to happen in 30 years. I expect oil will be around for
quite a long time. But it will be used by people who have
no option but to use oil. Rich countries who are historically responsible
for the greatest proportion of carbon emissions, they have the greatest responsibility
to act first and most. So, there’s this issue of fairness, and,
in a sense, everyone is right here. But it doesn’t really matter. We all need to work on this together whether
or not its fair in any sense. Developing countries are saying yes, we want
to be part of this, we want to transition, but we really need the help. We cannot achieve our climate goals
if we don’t achieve universal access for everybody. The story of energy, climate change, and development
have to be one of the same. 30 years from now, the world will look different,
but how much it will change and how different it will look that’s still
very hard to see. It is sometimes difficult to dream about
the future and the way to get there. But a new system is possible. And that is where my hope is.
