Explained (2018–…): Season 3, Episode 5 - The End of Oil - full transcript

[narrator] 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 the US president,

Lyndon B. Johnson.



[narrator] 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.

[narrator] 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.

[narrator] Governments
are starting to agree

that we shouldn't let the world warm
more than 1.5 degrees centigrade.

And we're on track
to blow past that by 2030.

So why is it so hard to turn off the tap?

And can we do it in time?

[man 1] Industrial nations have developed
a great dependency on oil.

[man 2] It has added
a new freedom to our lives.

[man 3] The invaluable stocks of oil
in these exotic islands.

[man 4] Their wealth is cracking
the old life of Arabia wide open.

The Nigerian government
love the oil more than our lives.

[man 5] Increasing amounts
of carbon dioxide surround us.

If man continues to abuse his environment,

Earth, too, may become barren.

[Yergin] The story of oil
is a story of geopolitical clash,

of technological advancement,
and intense competition.

[man] 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.

[Hawke] At the time,
it was an agricultural economy.

[Bassey] Cotton from the north,

cocoa from the west,
and rubber from the midwest.

[Hawke] And in the area
where Nnimmo grew up, fishing.

[Bassey] The Niger Delta is an area

that is crisscrossed by water bodies,

creeks, streams, rivers, estuaries,

which is the breeding ground
for most fish in the Gulf of Guinea.

[Hawke] It was so fertile, fishermen could
just leave their traps at high tide

and pick them up at low tide.

And in the evenings…

[Bassey] Children would sit around
in the moonlight,

and the elders would share stories.

[Hawke] 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.

[Bassey] Nigerians were extremely hopeful

that the discovery of oil 
in their communities

would bring about positive changes
in the economic well-being,

in the health conditions of the people,
in terms of employment and everything.

[Hawke] 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.

[Hawke] 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 world had ever seen.

And then oil came along.

[Yergin] And that started 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.

[Lord Browne] Oil was
the most energy-packed

liquid source of power
that you could get your hands on.

[Yergin] Right from the 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 in the foothills
of the Zagros Mountains in Persia.

That was the start
of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

[Hawke] Later renamed British Petroleum.

And they were just in time.

[Yergin] 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.

[Hawke] Oil put the world in motion.

[Lord Browne] People were finding 
newfound freedom,

driving all over the place,
flying all over the place.

It's pulled millions of people
out of poverty.

[Yergin] What oil did
was really create the modern world.

[Lord Browne] Pipelines were built, 
roads were built,

gas stations were built,
refineries were built.

Everybody wanted investment
in oil and gas.

[Hawke] But the profits were lopsided.

[man] The ocean of crude oil
underneath Persia's desert

led the way to the Middle East oil boom.

[Hawke] 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.

[reporter] The long-smoldering Iranian
nationalists made clear their intention

to seize the oil industry
and expropriate the British company.

[Hawke] So in 1953,

Britain and the US engineered a coup,

overthrowing Iran's democratically
elected leader to install the Shah.

[Lord Browne] Because they felt
that he was more amenable

to having a great relationship
with the West.

[Hawke] Which is how a young Lord Browne
ended up there.

I spent many years as a child in Iran

when my father was working
in the oil industry.

[Hawke] And when he turned 18,
he started working for BP himself.

[Lord Browne] 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?

[Hawke] 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,
Nnimmo'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

there was going to be
a new nation called Biafra.

[Hawke] 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 war front.

[Hawke] 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 you forget in a hurry.

[Hawke] 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 US
for their military support of Israel.

Suddenly, it turned into a crisis

and a shock to the political order.

[reporter] Gasoline stations ran dry.

Airlines cut back flight schedules.

Factories were forced to close.

[Hawke] 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…

It's ridiculous. You just don't know
where it's gonna stop.

[Hawke] …it was great for oil producers.

Nigeria became
one of the wealthiest countries in Africa.

But after that '70s boom,

oil prices crashed

and so did Nigeria's economy.

[Gross] 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.

[Hawke] 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 who gets the money,
and where does it go.

[Bassey] A large chunk of that has been
taken off by transnational corporations.

[Hawke] 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 you have an operator
who is also a regulator.

[Hawke] And since independence,
billions have disappeared.

That level of corruption,

it corrupts not just people economically.

It corrupts the political system.

[Hawke] And there were other costs.

In the Niger Delta,
over 50 years of spillage

has created 27,000 miles
of toxic oil swamps.

[Bassey] Kids are swimming in water
covered in crude oil.

Life expectancy is at 41 years,

maybe one of the lowest
in the entire world.

[Hawke] Fishermen can no longer
just leave their traps at high tide.

You have the fisher folks
who go into the rivers

and toil all day and all night,
and catch nothing.

[Hawke] And no more moonlit nights.

[Bassey] The gas flares set up
by the oil corporations

burn 24 hours, every day.

[Hawke] 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 average temperature

has increased
by more than one degree centigrade.

[Hayhoe] 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.

[Gross] So, the rich countries
caused the problems.

We're the ones who put out all these
carbon emissions over all these years.

[Hawke] But developing countries
are facing the brunt of the cost.

It's already pushed
millions of people to flee their homes.

[Bassey] The clock is ticking,
and we can wonder whether there's any hope

that we can pull this off

or whether we've come
to the precipice as the human race.

[Hayhoe] What's at risk?
Not the planet. It will survive.

What's at risk is us.

[Hawke] The world emits
around 50 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…

…a strong aspiration to reach net zero.

…significantly reducing emissions.

…legislation for net zero.

Nigeria has rolled out
institutional frameworks

to cut emission 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 gonna require a lot of technology
that really hasn't been developed yet.

[Hawke] 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 offset it."

[Hawke] By restoring forests, wetlands.

[Lord Browne] Techniques in the ocean.

[Hawke] Which can help
soak up more carbon.

Or carbon capture technology,

which is still expensive.

That's an issue
with a lot of these solutions.

So, many governments
are trying to tip the balance.

More than 40 countries
have a price on carbon

to make burning fossil fuels more costly.

And over the past decade,
the US has been moving from coal

to natural gas, the result of fracking.

The US went from being
the world's largest importer of oil

to the world's largest producer of oil.

[Hawke] And the natural gas plants
the US has been building

are major investments
in a fossil fuel future.

But it's helped the country
significantly reduce emissions.

And emissions are dropping in Europe, too,

but global emissions are not.

[Gross] 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, 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.

[Hawke] While Nigeria's land
is energy-rich…

It's the country that has the largest
energy access deficit in the world.

[Hawke] In a country of
around 200 million people,

almost half don't have
access to electricity.

And for those who do…

[Bassey] Every day
at nine o'clock in the morning,

public power supply goes off where I live.

It comes back at 2:00 p.m.

and then it goes off again at 8:00 p.m.

[Hawke] So most businesses

rely on diesel-powered generators
to keep the lights on.

There's 800 million 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 the difference between life and death
for a lot of people.

[Hayhoe] They need to be able to develop,

to have electricity
and infrastructure like we do.

But today, we know
there's better ways to do that

than the ways we did it
200 or 300 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.

[Ogunbiyi] There's a bit of a hypocrisy
with the 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 her 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.

She says, "I don't have any money
to buy the 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
"Don't use fossil, don't use coal,"

you have to have financing behind that.

[Hawke] For Africa to actually transition,

experts say it would take
an investment of 70 billion every year.

[Bassey] 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.

[Hawke] 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 100 billion a year by 2020.

And we are nowhere near getting that.

[Hawke] They've fallen short
by 90 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?

[Hawke] 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.

[Gross] China has made
wind and solar technologies much cheaper,

but they're also still investing
in coal plants.

[Hawke] And recently,
the US has invested nine 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.

[Hawke] 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.

[Bassey] 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.

[Lord Browne] I certainly feel ownership
of both the benefits of oil and gas,

and the issues, including climate change.

[Hawke] Back in 1997,

Lord Browne made a speech
that shocked the oil industry.

There is a discernible human influence
on the climate.

The oil world reacted badly

and declared that I had, quote,
"left the church."

[Hawke] But now the world's oil giants

are also acknowledging
we need to get to net zero.

[Gross] They see which way
the political winds are blowing

and they're going with them.

[Lord Browne] They must contribute
to the solution,

not just hope that the word "sorry"
can get you out of the penalty box.

Most companies have a choice to make.

[Hawke] But overall,
these oil companies have chosen oil.

Renewables make up
less than 1% of their investments.

One report estimates that in 2030,

most of the world's oil giants

will actually be producing

more oil then they do today.

And while private companies
once ruled the oil world,

government-owned ones
now produce half the world's oil and gas,

and many of their economies
are largely dependent on them.

[Gross] 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.

[Yergin] The 88-trillion-dollar
world economy

has been based on an energy system

in which oil has a preeminent role.

Other energy transitions took centuries.
This is meant to happen in 30 years.

[Lord Browne] 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.

[Gross] 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 it's fair in any sense.

[Ogunbiyi] Developing countries
are saying, "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.

[Yergin] Thirty years from now,
the world will look different.

How much it will change
and how different it will look,

that's still very hard to see.

Sometimes it's 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.

[closing theme music playing]