The Guardian reports this morning that top executives of major oil and gas companies, gathered this week at an industry conference in Houston, are scoffing at efforts to rapidly transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, despite the clear scientific evidence that a failure to reduce greenhouse gases soon will create chaos for our climate and life on this planet.

At the annual Cera Week meeting, according to the Guardian piece, Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, said, “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas, and instead invest in them adequately.” The paper reports that Nasser’s declaration was met with applause from conference attendees.

Nasser, according to the report, went on to reject the International Energy Agency’s forecast that global demand for fossil fuels will peak around 2030.

“In fact, in the real world, the current transition strategy is visibly failing on most fronts,” Nasser said.

Meg O’Neill, CEO of Australia’s Woodside Energy, is quoted as saying the move to clean energy must not “happen at an unrealistic pace,” indicating it might take 40 years, even though climate scientists say that such a slow transition would have devastating effects.

O’Neill disdainfully dismissed the warnings of climate advocates as “emotional.”

“And when things are emotional,” O’Neill told her fellow executives, “it becomes more difficult to have a pragmatic conversation.”