OSLO -- The global oil and gas industry's profits in 2022 jumped to some US$4 trillion from an average of $1.5 trillion in recent years, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, said on Tuesday.
Despite those profits, countries depending on oil and gas revenue should prepare to reduce their reliance on petroleum as demand is going to fall in the longer term, Birol told a conference in Oslo while speaking via video link.
"Especially the countries in the Middle East have to diversify the their economies. In my view, the COP28 (climate summit) could be an excellent milestone to change the destiny of the Middle East countries," Birol said.
"You cannot anymore run a country whose economy is 90% reliant on oil and gas revenues because oil demand will go down," he added.
This year's United Nations climate talks will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates, a members of the OPEC group of oil producing countries.
Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik
