Shilling for Oil?

I am embarrassed to see PAW publishing propaganda for Kuwait’s oil industry. Nawaf al-Sabah ’94’s talking points reflect the oil heir’s obvious personal investment and minimal background in economics, climate science, and engineering. Although a few paragraphs mention views unsympathetic to Kuwait Petroleum, those admissions are immediately undercut by unsupported supposition from al-Sabah. PAW can do better than this uncritical fawning.

Emissions from oil extraction and refinement are less than 5% of the emissions from burning oil, so it’s laughable that al-Sabah claims KPC’s efforts to neutralize their direct contribution can “solve the climate problem” while the corporation increases its oil production by 50%. Kuwait may not be able to go cold turkey on oil, but it should look to its oil-producing neighbors’ plans to diversify their economies if it doesn’t want to be left behind.