The Obvious Hypocrisy at the COP28… Here’s What It Means For Global Energy Demand

The Obvious Hypocrisy at the COP28… Here’s What It Means For Global Energy Demand

Chris MacIntosh

So much to cover. Where to start?

Marxists traditionally called religion “the opiate of the masses,” which is ironic since the Marxists now use “climate change” as the new religion. The climate change religion, however, does not even offer any such sedation, only misery for the masses.

Not only do they offer nothing, but misery they do so while ensuring they pay no such price.

These psychopathic Malthusian monsters all popped over to the UAE and then promptly lectured the little people how many showers you’ll be allowed to take each week to fix the weather.

Chuck stood up and proceeded to tell all the “elites” that the peasants are all a perverse drain on the climate and must be eliminated with all due speed. No kidding! Keep in mind this is the same Charlie who, back in 2009, at one of these absurd junkets said we all had 96 months to avert “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse.” So according to Charlie, 2017 was D-Day for humanity. It is a miracle we have made it nearly seven years and we’re still around. Of course, the peasants will keep being fed idiotic nonsense and kept in a state of panic.

Which is not at all releasing CO2. Not a drop. You taking a shower, though? Ooh, bad.

And a gazillion bombs being dropped in both Ukraine as well as Gaza far exceeding emissions from your entire country’s CO2 emissions. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along and here, have some bugs — you’ll be saving the planet. For real.

It’s all so unbelievably absurd, which is why I was heartened by what happened with this guy.

This good looking fella here is the UAE’s Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology in the United Arab Emirates as well as the Managing Director and Group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

With all those titles he must be a busy man. Not too busy, though, to be the Chairman of COP28 this year. And he took this opportunity to slay some virtue signalling demons.

Responding to one such virtue signalling shrieking shill, the good Sultan said he expected the conversation to be “sober and mature,” but not “alarmist.”

He then proceeded to decisively lay waste to the idea of ending fossil fuels.

There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5°C,” he said, adding that the move would not “allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.

Perhaps, like us at HQ here and you our wonderful readers, the Arabs can’t seem to find the science that keeps being discussed.

By the end of the conference, not even the sirloin steaks and champagne had cheered poor old grifter Al Gore who was distraught.

No, Al. This is the global South calling bullshit on the ridiculous climate change hoax.

Which brings me to…

With COP28 officially over and all the virtue signalers jetted back home and safely ensconced in their mansions, it’s worth noting that global energy demand has grown at 1.5% per year since COP15 (in Copenhagen in 2009). Remember, this was the one where prince Charlie promised us we were all going to die.

So anyway, while Charlie has been jetting about cutting ribbons and stuff the world’s carried on (using fossil fuels), demand has continued to grow, and energy derived from fossil fuels has grown at 1.2% per year, essentially responsible for a whopping 80% of this growth. Hahaha, take that Charlie, you miserable old git.

Now with that as a backdrop to continued energy demand, let’s take a look at where we are at today regarding oil, in particular, oil positioning. Now, ordinarily we don’t pay too much attention to this as it is short-term in nature, and as you know, we tend to focus on the longer-term trends so as to ensure we don’t get whipsawed with short-term noise. After all, we’re not traders here, but long-term investors.

That said, this is kinda fascinating. Take a look.

The oil market is now THE most bearish, as measured by net length, as far back as our data goes. I’m not entirely sure what the collective market is so bearish about, but what I do know is that historic positioning like this always reverses at some point. You see, this isn’t merely a matter of a bunch of fund managers (who control hundreds of billions of dollars in capital) saying, “Meh, I’m staying out of oil.” No this is them saying, “Hey, let’s get short.” Keep in mind the only way to profit from such a trade is to close out that position, and the only way to close out a short position is buy it back.

What is unique about the situation now is that the positioning is far removed from fundamentals as the market is only 17MM bbls away from being net short. Time will tell if this ends up being one of those unique periods within a bull market where you get the chance to buy true asymmetry. What I do know is that I’d sure as hell would not want to be short with all the weight on the other side of the boat.

The situation is so extreme that we’re now seeing it being reported across multiple channels.