Without getting into the
Without getting into the politics of the oil business, which often leads to the misplaced focus on the Who needs to do rather than the What needs to be done, we can all agree that (a) The Sun's limitless energy offers tremendous possibilities (b) although any transition to a solar energy regime is going to create some short-term difficulties in adjusting our lifestyles, the sooner the transition is made, the better it is for giving our children a sustainable future; and (c) the World needs to work together in containing population growth, instead of pretending that it is the responsibility of the host country to handle this on its own (which most countries are simply unable to do, for want of resources or the governance structures that make it possible.
From a technical angle, the biggest problem seems to be that of energy storage, which keeps us hooked to fossil fuels that afford both portability and storage stability. It appears that quantum breakthroughs on storage of energy may not be feasible in the immediate future due to the thermodynamic barrier. However, efficiency improvements are being reported daily on various fronts. One great area which offers room for significant efficiency improvement is the concept of energy porting across time zones. The notion is still new, but the technology is understood, the scales of investment are manageable, but what is really lacking is the speed at which the old Cold War dogmas are laid to rest and a new paradigm for global cooperation evolved which permits the basic principles of common carrier responsibilities and tariffs.
The other way to accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy future is raising the threshold for fossil fuel use, (or lower the threshold for solar) by means of Carbon Tax, which can fund the expenditure on the transition. And who better to make this transition possible than the present Energy majors themselves?