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CONVENTIONAL OIL DEPELTION & GLOBAL CLIMATE POLICY

by Aubrey Meyer
Global Commons Institute (GCI)
UK
aubrey@gci.org.uk

GLOBE's documentation on Climate Change and "Contraction and Convergence" presented to the G-8 leaders in Birmingham [UK 1998] is available [as a downloadable pdf file] from: - http://www.gci.org.uk/papers.html
GLOBE International is a network of environmentally concerned parliamentarians.
Their website is at: - http://www.globeint.org/

The abstract shows:
(a) a history all country fossil fuel production and consumption 1800 - 2000. The consumption data comes from CDIAC and the production data comes from industry sources; all is expressed in gigatonnes carbon content.

(b) a scenario of all country fossil fuel production and consumption 2000 - 2200. The consumption data is generated from GCI's CCOptions model expressed in gigatonnes carbon content and the production data is as follows.

The 'scenario' projects a global carbon consumption/production contraction budget with an integral consistent with IPCC's stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 concentration at 450 ppmv (CO2 only) by around 2100. Consumption shares coverge to international equality per capita by 2030, which is then the (UN medium fertility) population base year, in this image.

The equivalent integral of oil, coal and gas production comes from integrating the data for the declining availability of conventional oil supplies consistent with the data published by the IEA in 'The World Energy Outlook" at the end of 1998, accompanied by Campbell's long range estimates for gas depletion. Future coal production is 'matched' to the balance of the 450 ppmv consumption integral. Future international production shares of coal remain proportional to shares in 1997 for simplicity.

Records show that global conventional oil discovery peaked in the 1960s and that global production of conventional oil is peaking in this decade.

This all country depletion data in the oil/coal/gas production production scenario, show that roughly two thirds of conventional reserves are in the Gulf Middle East and that their annual global production share is rising from 30% to +50% during this present decade [2001-2010}. The rising oil price is almost certainly a function of this shift already.

This has significant implications for global climate policy. To arrive at higher CO2 atmospheric ppmv futures the increased production/consumption of fossil fuel would have to come from rates of increased coal production that to many might seem unrealistic.