That’s a pretty stark warning from the IEA. And begs the question whether OPEC can increase production by 4.9 million barrels over the next five years. There’s supposedly
3.5-4 mbd spare capacity in Gawar, but as posted in February, a Saudi Aramco spokesman admitted last year that its mature fields are now declining at a rate of 8 percent
per year,a decline 50% of production in about 9 years time. This all puts enormous significance on the un-exploited Iraqi reserves. This again makes me ponder the question upon which, without exageration, the future of mankind depends - will the oil supply crunch have a positive effect of constraining global carbon emissions? Potentially, high oil costs put a brake on economic growth and encourage energy efficiency gains while high energy costs more generally make renewables economic. Two key factors working against this are of course that the high cost of conventional oil makes economic the production of carbon intensive unconvential oil (whether tar sands or coal liquefaction) and bio-deisel (which, unless there is substantial control on the use of palm oil and soya as feedstocks will lead to a huge increase in rain forest destruction in S.E Asia and South America Respectively). Would the reduced emissions resulting from decreased consumption be out weighed by the consequence of economic stagnation - namely, a failure to invest in low carbon technologies? I’m reminded that the only Kyoto signatories that “achieved” substantail cuts in carbon emissions was Russia during the collapse of its industiral base.

These issue make two campaigns all the more important : (more…)