Energy titans are defending their efforts to secure a lower carbon future and are calling for environmental campaigners to remember how vital the current energy mix is to millions of people.

Speaking on a CNBC-moderated panel Monday at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference (Adipec), leaders of huge oil and gas firms offered a defiant voice on current efforts to reduce carbon.

“I am alarmed when you hear things like extinction, crisis, emergency in some parts of the world,” outgoing CEO of BP, Bob Dudley told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick on Monday.

“And then you spend time in some parts of the world, like I have in India, South East Asia, there is a different type of emergency where villages don’t have access to electricity and pumps don’t produce clean water.”

Dudley said global energy needs are rapidly rising and a 30 to 40% energy capacity upgrade would be needed to accommodate the predicted additional 2 billion extra people on the planet by the year 2040.

The 64-year-old, who is set to step down in early 2020, added that there was a lack of realism from environmentalists and lawmakers who want the energy industry to immediately stop carbon-emitting activity.

“There’s just a lot of people, very well-meaning people, who want to believe that there is a simple solution,” said Dudley.

The BP boss said natural gas, which emits roughly half of the carbon as coal to produce the same level of energy, needed to be a big part of the energy transition story. He said fast-developing technology to monitor gas leakage, such as satellite imagery and drone inspection, would soon help to reduce waste further.