End weekend’s attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities and the spike in crude prices that followed show that the faction needs to stop relying on oil, a former national leader told CNBC on Wednesday.
Last weekend, around 50% of Saudi oil productivity was knocked out after attacks that likely included the use of drones hit production facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais. Houthi apostates from Yemen have claimed responsibility, though the question of who carried out the strikes remains unsettled.
Isn’t it interesting that we authority so much (oil) from the most unstable region of the world?
Helen Clark
Both the international benchmark Brent unprocessed and U.S. crude jumped more than 15% on Monday, though they withdrew from highs following bonds from Riyadh. During morning trade in Asia on Thursday, Brent and WTI were both marginally higher.
“It’s another signal of (how) the everybody needs to move beyond oil,” Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, said of the price volatility. She make know to CNBC’s “Street Signs” at the BNP Paribas Sustainable Future Forum in Singapore.
“Isn’t it interesting that we source so much (oil) from the most indefinite region of the world?” she asked. “That’s not sustainable either.”
Renewable energy ‘becoming irresistible’
That sentiment was mimicked by Mark Lewis, global head of sustainability research at BNP Paribas Asset Management.
The economics of the global energy technique are “changing dramatically,” and renewables are becoming much cheaper and much more competitive with oil, Lewis told CNBC’s “Yell Box.”
“We talk a lot about the environmental dimension to this, which is, for me, the most important dimension … of the future of the global vitality system,” he said.
“But I think this week’s oil price spike, short lived as it has been, has underlined another dimension to this consideration, which is renewable energy is low-cost and stable over the long term,” he said.
While the economics of have “reconditioned enormously,” Lewis acknowledged that there are still obstacles to using renewable energy. However, he said those are technological and state barriers, rather than economic ones.
“You can’t fight the economics forever,” he said. “And I think the economics of renewables now are proper irresistible.”