Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for your testimony and for answering our questions and providing your perceptions on these things.
There's just one thing I want to clarify. When we talk about benefiting people in the global south, I think we all have to acknowledge that historically speaking, resource extraction has not benefited people in the global south. It has, in fact, been the opposite case.
That's not really what I want to ask a question on. I want to ask you a bit of a question on some of your experiences with the Chancellor and with our supplying of energy to Germany, because of course, on February 24, the world changed. None of us were ready for what ensued. Certainly the weaponization of energy by Vladimir Putin and his illegal war on Ukraine have had deep impacts around the world.
You said that Chancellor Scholz had said, “We need your gas.” I was in Germany last week. I actually met with the Chancellor. I met with Wolfgang Schmidt, who is, of course, the head of the Chancellery. They made it very clear that they do want access to natural gas right now to help them, but not in 2023, because they were quite clear that in 2023 they will be fine. They do want to have access to natural gas going forward, but they want it for the short term, because they have a very strong vision for dealing with the climate crisis.
As they are building their transition hubs, as they are building things within Hamburg to deal with natural gas, they are ensuring that all of those pieces are equipped, or will be able to be equipped, for hydrogen, because they are not prepared to go into 10-, 12-, 15- or 20-year contracts on natural gas. They are interested in short-term natural gas and then will do a very quick pivot and move as soon as possible to renewables.
That was made very clear to us, so when we talk about the idea that right now we don't have the capacity to give natural gas to Germany.... We don't have that infrastructure. I may agree with you 100% that the infrastructure could have been useful, that it would have been nice to have, but we don't have it.
Realistically, are you describing a “we want your natural gas for the long term” strategy when the long term doesn't appear to be what the world is looking for in terms of natural gas?