June saw the launch of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO).
All Party Parliamentary Groups are composed of politicians from all political parties and have members from the House of Commons and the House of Lords.  APPGOPO will enable interested MPs and Lords to discuss Peak Oil and all its surrounding issues. The APPGOPO has the support of over twenty MPs and Lords.  This actually makes it the largest political grouping looking at Peak Oil in the world.

ODAC reports:Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has been vocal on this issue since becoming an MP, was elected as Chair, while Colin Challen MP, highly respected for his work on pushing the issue of Climate Change with the APPGCC, and Lord Robin Teverson took the positions of Vice Chair.  Labour MP Austin Mitchell, with 30 years of Parliamentary experience, took the position of Secretary, while Mark Williams, Liberal Democrat MP for Ceredigion, was elected Treasurer.  David Drew, Labour MP for Stroud, was also present.  Many more Parliamentarians who offered their support for the group could not attend.

The AGM also established the initial parameters for its mission.  It will use available Parliamentary processes to raise the issue, and there is likely to be regular meetings, open to the public, discussing the issue.  The first APPGOPO event may take place before the end of July.  The group wants to look at the technological and geological issues, the geopolitical issues, the government viewpoints and those of the industry, the impact of alternative fuels such as biofuels, how peak oil and climate change relate, and mitigation and solution options.  Although the group will not produce its own prediction for the date of Peak Oil, it will analyse the various predictions that exist.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas is the result of several months work of collaboration between PowerSwitch, The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC), and John Hemming MP.  Although it has no formal powers, and receives no funding, this group is a vital step in raising the necessary awareness of the issue, from which a rational response to the challenges can come.  Educating key decision makers and challenging established views on the issue is a task this group must, and can, achieve.  The formation group also provides further evidence that Peak Oil is far removed from the days of being a fringe subject.  Many of those concerned about the impending decline of global oil supplies may take hope that a significant group of their representatives are finally going to speak about the Peak openly in the corridors of power.

Action Point: If you live in the UK, you might like to encourage your MP (see Write To Them) to join this group, or at the very least highlight its existence and its aims. All UK MPs have surgeries where they meet members of their constituencies. How about making an appointment and handing over a copy of Robert Hirsch’s Peaking of World Oil Production: Recent Forecasts (PDF, 494 Kb), and giving an introduction to APPGOPO? This report is especially useful because it highlights that the large majority of forecasts reviewed have peak between now and 2020, and it was funded by the US government.