Look at them. Energy executives reclining in Doha’s polished conference halls, suits pressed, smiles calibrated, nodding gravely while panels discuss “the existential carbon threat.” From a distance, it almost looks as if they are defending LNG against hostile forces. In reality, they are genuflecting before the carbon cult with the piety of altar boys who have memorized the catechism.
If anyone still believes the hydrocarbon industry is locked in mortal combat with climate alarmism, scenes like this should cure them. There is no trench warfare. There is choreography. The executives do not ask for evidence. They do not demand measurable causality. They do not interrogate the apocalyptic projections. Why would they?
They are managers.
And a manager, in its purest corporate form, is a hired gun. Not an engineer anchored in first principles. Not a founder who risks his own capital. Not a craftsman with pride in a product. A manager is interchangeable. Today he sits on the board of an LNG exporter. Tomorrow he optimizes diaper production. The year after that he runs a retail banking division. The skill set is portable because it is abstract: PowerPoint fluency, risk diffusion, narrative alignment.
Taste? Optional. Conviction? Dangerous. Conscience? Inefficient.
The managerial organism survives by reading the prevailing wind and adjusting posture accordingly. If the narrative of the age demands carbon contrition, then carbon contrition it shall perform. It will sit in a hydrocarbon-exporting emirate, financed by the very molecules under indictment, and solemnly declare that the world is teetering on the brink of fiery annihilation—unless, of course, we manage the transition carefully, prudently, profitably.
Notice the sleight of hand.
We are told that CO₂ is an existential threat. That every molecule emitted edges us closer to catastrophe. That we stand one heatwave away from civilizational collapse. I was under the impression that all emissions must be avoided at any cost. That we should perhaps regulate volcanism while we are at it. Oceanic outgassing. Solar cycles. Cosmic rays. If the narrative is to be believed, the universe itself must submit to our compliance frameworks.
And yet, when it comes to their own balance sheets, the tone shifts. Yes, the planet is burning—but do not touch our LNG. In fact, LNG is the bridge. The savior. The transitional hero molecule. Without it, there can be no salvation.
So which is it? Apocalypse or asset protection?
You cannot have both total emergency and selective exemption. If the house is truly on fire, you do not negotiate which wing may continue to smolder for quarterly earnings. The contradiction is glaring, but contradictions do not trouble the managerial class. Their loyalty is not to coherence. It is to continuity—of position, of compensation, of career trajectory.
The hydrocarbon industry does not fight the alarmist crowd. It partners with it. The alarmists provide the existential drama. The executives provide the pragmatic “solutions.” Carbon capture. Offsets. Net-zero pledges with convenient timelines extending beyond their own tenure. Everyone gets to look responsible. Everyone keeps earning.
It is symbiosis.
The carbon cult receives validation from the very industries it denounces. “Even the oil companies admit the crisis!” The executives receive moral cover and regulatory predictability. “We are aligned with the science.” Investors receive ESG checkmarks. Politicians receive talking points. A closed loop of mutual reinforcement.
What no one receives is intellectual honesty.
When did we last see a major energy executive stand up and ask: Where is the hard evidence that justifies dismantling the energy architecture of eight billion people? Where is the transparent, reproducible data that warrants this scale of intervention? Where is the sober cost–benefit analysis unclouded by apocalyptic theatrics?
Silence.
Because to ask such questions would be to step outside the narrative. And stepping outside narratives is hazardous for careers built on navigating them. Better to adopt the language of urgency while quietly ensuring that your own product line is rebranded as indispensable.
The irony of Doha is almost poetic. Hydrocarbon wealth underwriting conferences where hydrocarbons are ritually condemned. Delegates flying in on jet fuel to discuss the moral depravity of combustion. Air-conditioned halls powered by gas turbines hosting panels on the end of fossil fuels. One could admire the efficiency of the hypocrisy.
But do not mistake this for stupidity. It is calculation.
The managerial class understands something fundamental: narratives change. What is orthodoxy today becomes embarrassment tomorrow. They have survived dot-com bubbles, housing collapses, sovereign debt crises. They will survive carbon hysteria as well. When the tide turns—and it will—they will pivot. The same faces will speak a new language. The same PowerPoints will carry different slogans.
This is easier without a spine.
Conviction requires friction. It requires saying no when yes would be safer. It requires standing apart from consensus. Managers are not selected for that trait. They are selected for adaptability within consensus.
So they sit smugly, applauded for their “leadership,” while endorsing a framework that, taken at face value, would indict their entire industry. They speak of transformation while safeguarding margins. They invoke planetary peril while securing bonuses.
Call it what it is: theater.
And theater continues as long as the audience applauds. As long as we accept the premise that the hydrocarbon industry is bravely defending itself against irrational alarmists, rather than dancing in coordinated step with them, the performance will go on.
But performances end. Narratives collapse. When the carbon scare finally fractures under the weight of its own exaggerations, watch how swiftly the language shifts. Yesterday’s existential threat becomes today’s misunderstood variable. Yesterday’s urgent pledges become “aspirational pathways.” The same executives will explain, with straight faces, that they always advocated balance.
Turning on a heel is effortless when you never planted your feet.