Oil is one of the world’s most durable global commodities. With few ready commercial substitutes, its extraordinary staying power is demonstrated by its enduring energy sector dominance, even as market prices fluctuate dramatically and geopolitical disruptions strike.

Experts from the Carnegie Endowment, Stanford University, and University of Calgary participated in a Reddit AMA on December 5.

Focusing mainly on petroleum products has handicapped efforts to help the oil industry make choices consonant with a low-carbon world.

The Oil-Climate Index research team participated in an online Q&A to discuss the Oil-Climate Index, a first-of-its-kind tool that analyzes the overall climate impacts of different oils from extraction to refining to combustion.

Oil is changing. Conventional oil resources are dwindling as tight oil, oil sands, heavy oils, and others emerge.

Oil is changing. The oils themselves, how they are extracted and processed, and the products into which they are made are shifting in substantial ways.

At a VIP dinner the night before the Oil-Climate Index was unveiled, John P. Holdren, assistant to the President for Science and Technology, gave a keynote lecture about the state of climate science and policy.