Greenpeace, Oil and Sustainable Development

A study commissioned by Greenpeace UK

Charles Kronick

May 1997

1997 will see at least two events that are intended to reveal the progress so far achieved in addressing global environmental problems and what the next steps will be in addressing those problems. Both the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) taking place this year in June in New York, and the Third conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP3) scheduled for December in Kyoto are significant landmarks in that process intended to protect the global environment, begun in Rio De Janeiro in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

In early 1997, Greenpeace UK commissioned research to look at the relationship of at least two of the broad areas that must be part of any effort to protect the environment: human induced climate change and sustainable development. This document has neither the remit nor the scope to examine these enormous processes in any detail, but a "snapshot" of both the state of the climate issue and the sustainability debate has emerged from recent United Nations documents examining progress so far in the run-up to the June meeting in New York. "…From a global perspective the environment has continued to degrade during he past decade, and significant environmental problems remain deeply imbedded in the socio-economic fabric of nations in all regions. Progress towards a global sustainable future is just too slow. A sense of urgency is lacking. Internationally and nationally, the funds and political will are insufficient to halt further global degradation…"(1)

The current round of preparatory negotiations, leading up to UNGASS, has also produced a disturbing accompanying development. The expected "North/South" conflict over resource transfers has occurred, and is casting a shadow over all the discussions. The position of the G77 countries - the South -is that the OECD group - the North - had committed to providing "new and additional" financial resources at Rio, and that this has not occurred. Unless and until these resources become available, some say, the South will not accept any of their responsibilities.This combination of deteriorating conditions in the physical environment and a worrying stalemate in the political environment are the context for this particular study.

Sustainability

The relationship of climate change as an environmental "issue" and sustainable development as a process intended to respond to a number of such issues is complex. On one hand, climate change is a problem that has been described, defined and acted upon largely at the elite level, by scientists and policy makers located for the most in the North. The origins of the problem are rooted in the activities of the industrialised world - since the beginning of industrialisation, with a massive increase in the last 50 years.

On the other hand, the experience of climate change is likely to be felt most acutely in the developing world. There is a similar dissonance in the projected range of responses to climate change. While the developed world is both historically and currently responsible for the vast bulk of the pollution contributing climate change, much of the conflict in the negotiations designed to address the problem does not concern historical responsibility for the problem or even the nature of the scientific consensus on the issue, but about future responses to it, based upon emissions from the South that have not yet taken place.

Purpose of the Greenpeace Study

Greenpeace has been involved in the work to confront and control human influence on the climate since 1988. Over that time there has been an enormous increase in the understanding of the complex interplay of factors that can influence the climate - such as greenhouse gas emissions, ocean circulation systems, clouds and water vapour in the atmosphere, the role of forests and arctic tundra as sinks and sources of carbon dioxide (CO2), the effects of both chlorinated chemicals such as CFCs and sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere, - among many others. There has also been a concurrent increase in the understanding and awareness of the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change: increasing average temperatures, leading to species and habitat extinction, a potentially disastrous increase in severe weather events such as hurricanes, winter storms, floods and drought, changes in the nature and distribution of many vector borne diseases, such as malaria. The list is long and disturbing. Any of these impacts in isolation could be hugely disruptive. Combined unpredictably over time, the impacts of climate change could change the global environment at an unprecedented rate.

This increased knowledge of the causes and impacts of climate change is reinforced by the realisation in 1995 by a consensus of climate scientists around the world that climate change was already under way.(2)

As early as 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was recommending cuts in emissions of CO2 of at least 60% in order to stabilise concentrations of CO2at the then current levels. Merely stabilising emissions - the only concrete goal of the Rio conference five years ago - would allow concentrations to continue to rise in the atmosphere, and to continue to damage the climate.

It is against this political and scientific backdrop that since 1990 Greenpeace has been calling for at the least the beginning of a phase out of oil, coal and gas - the fossil fuels which are the principal sources of CO2 in the atmosphere. Such a phase out should be integral to sustainable development, or sustainability, yet as late 1996, even the idea of such a phase out could not be countenanced by the UK Government - one of the most progressive countries, in rhetorical terms at least - in exchanges between Greenpeace and the then Government on climate change.(3)

Specifically, this study had two purposes. The first was constituency building: Greenpeace has initiated a campaign to protect the area west of Shetland in the North Atlantic known as the Atlantic Frontier. The Atlantic Frontier is on a fast track to massive exploitation of oil and gas resources by over 30 oil companies including BP, Shell, Texaco, Mobil, Elf and Chevron. Though Greenpeace has a well developed and well deserved reputation for bold action, confronting the bulk of the world's most significant oil companies without a wider base of support moves beyond boldness.

The second principal purpose of the study was to attempt to begin to reinvigorate the debate on sustainable development.Any analysis of the state of the global environment shows a continuing deterioration in a wide range of areas since the last Earth Summit in 1992. In the same time period, there has been a bonanza in the discussion of sustainable development at the international and national levels, yet protection of the atmosphere, the seas, and the world's forests has continued to lag behind the talk. Process - consultation, public meetings, citizen's panels - still dominates progress. Until interest in sustainability becomes more closely connected to the measures intended to protect the environment, there will continue to be dissonance between the characterisation of environmental problems and the responses to those problems.

The object of the study was to survey development, wildlife/habitat, single issue environment campaigns and even other large players in the environment field (see Appendix One for a complete list of the agencies contacted) - all of which have participated at some level in debate surrounding sustainable development and all of which should be concerned with the impact of climate change on their specific areas of interest. Would or could these groups make the link between their areas of concern, and the ultimately appropriate response to climate change: an eventual phase out of fossil fuels?

The intention of the survey was never to elicit a simple yes/no/don't know response to what all acknowledge are complex political and environmental questions. Rather it was an attempt to initiate a discussion of how phasing out fossil fuels and introducing renewable sources of energy can take place, give that such a transition is clearly explicit in some, and implicit in nearly all the international agreements concerning a sustainable future.

Components of the Survey

The survey was conducted in March, April and May 1997. The agencies surveyed were contacted by post or fax, with follow up telephone calls and interviews, as well as personal interviews and visits. Those responding received an introduction and background briefing, as well as a simple survey form. (See Appendix Two for the complete documentation and survey.) It was not expected that each form would be fully completed; instead the form was intended to provide the framework for discussion. The individuals at each agency worked at either the senior policy or senior management level, and were chosen either on the basis of knowledge of their personal interest in climate change and sustainable development, or because those subject areas were as close as possible to their professional responsibilities within their respective agencies. The interview itself took place in the vast majority of cases with one staff member on the telephone.

Responses to the Survey

Analysis of the survey in this paper will be qualitative rather than quantitative: not every respondent answered every question in the survey, and as the survey questionnaire was intended at least in part to be a guide to discussion, in many cases the answers could not be directly compared. However, trends and themes did emerge. (Any remarks in quotation marks are transcriptions - non-attributed to any agency or individual - that illustrates a particular trend.)

• The response to the survey at a basic level was mainly polite, occasionally enthusiastic and very rarely rude. Of the 28 agencies contacted, 25 were willing to respond to the survey. The only universal response was a certain puzzlement at having been approached by Greenpeace. Not being known for its collaborative efforts in the past, ongoing efforts at constituency building by Greenpeace will have to continue to work to overcome a perception by other agencies that Greenpeace is unwilling to take the view of others into account.

• The essence of other responses seemed to be determined more by the type of agency - development, conservation/habitat/, environment or single issue pressure group(4) - rather than by their size, profile or location in the political spectrum. The other "mainstream" environment groups were suspicious: they wanted to know "what are you [Greenpeace] up to?".

• Single issue groups were initially perplexed -"what impact can our work have on this issue?", but able to engage.

• The most distinctive voice was that of the development groups: although initially baffled at an approach by Greenpeace, all became interested and indeed enthusiastic when the relevance of climate change to their work could be shown.

Trends

Certain trends in responses emerged from a majority of the participants in the survey.

• Few of the agencies had dealt with the issue of climate change in this context before: while the impact of climate change was acknowledged to be central to such issues as habitat or species protection, or greenhouse gas emissions were often a significant aspect of a particular sector such as transport, the relationship of climate change and sustainable development were not often explored. Climate change and an alternative to fossil fuels were simply off the map.

• Climate change was seen as "too scientific" to allow engagement by a large number of agencies.

• There was widespread concern surrounding credibility: both of any agency/group bold enough to call for the phasing out of fossil fuels in the foreseeable future - "when have you ever heard of any product being successfully banned for environmental reasons?" and the credibility of the alternatives to fossil fuels - solar and wind predominantly - to deliver the level of energy supply needed now and in the future - "human society can't move fast enough to reverse the trends that are already taking place - we need to take the longer view, 6-7 generations".

• Amongst most of the groups surveyed, there was widespread concern about legitimacy: this also took two forms. On the one hand, there was the question of what conferred upon particular agencies the "right of engagement" for a particular issue. Many groups found this legitimacy from their supporters and/or partner organisations. The other aspect of legitimacy was expertise: there was a fear of not knowing "enough" about the issue of climate change, and possibly undermining hard won recognition as being "expert" in a core area of activity.

• Many of the agencies in the survey were veterans of high level negotiations in various fields. Experience of "realpolitik" suggested that calling for an end to fossil fuels was a demand too far.

• Agencies with large numbers of supporters claimed that they lacked a "democratic" process or mechanism to gauge the level of endorsement/validation of such a new area of work from those supporters.

• Agencies with some staff or sector with expertise or commitment to climate as an "issue" claimed that they also lacked a mechanism for determining "positions for the agency as a whole.

• Finally, lack of common language for was broadly seen as a barrier for groups/agencies with different remits to come together to work on an issue like climate change and its relationship to sustainable development - even when it was in their interest to do so.

Conclusions

A survey such as this was neither expected nor intended to reveal a hidden truth. Certain themes emerged from the interviews however.

• Changing the language used to characterise the "problem" - in this case climate change, and the potential for responding to that problem also changes. Development agencies initially found it difficult to imagine a response to climate change in the abstract, but the idea of climate change and resource conflict, climate change and population movement or climate change and food security gave the issue a relevance and an urgency not previously apparent.

• There is, even within those working within the institutions of civil society - usefully defined as the structures that fill the space between the family and the state - a certain perceived loss of agency when responding to climate change. There is more however than a lack of "ownership" of the language that describes the problem.There also seems to be a feeling that the principal players - particularly "big business" or transnational companies, in the energy field - are currently immovable in the sense that they are unshakeably committed to their existing core businesses.

Both UNGASS and COP3 will have to respond to the challenge implicit in the results of this study. The status quo - or anything approaching business as usual in terms of the future rates of consumption of fossil fuels - and the goal of sustainable development will not be reconciled. If the international instruments such as the FCCC and the other components of Agenda 21designed to protect the global environment are to succeed, then the language of climate change will have to escape its science and policy "ghetto" and move to the broader stage of societal concern.

Appendix One

Organisations surveyed for the Crossing the Atlantic Frontier: Greenpeace, Oil and Sustainable Development
Association For the Conservation of Energy
ALARM UK
Catholic Institute for International Relations
Centre for Alternative Technology
Christian Aid
CPRE
Environmental Investigation Agency
Friends of the Earth
Green College
Intermediate Technology
International Institute for Environment and Development
Marine Conservation Society
MEDACT
The National Trust
The New Economics Foundation
OXFAM
Royal Geographical Society
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Save the Children Fund
Safe Alliance
SUSTRANS
Town and Country Planning Association
Transport 2000
Wildlife and Countryside Link
RSNC/The Wildlife Trusts
The Women's Environmental Network
World Development Movement
The Worldwide Fund for Nature

Appendix Two

Briefing and Survey Materials Supplied to the Organisations Surveyed in Crossing the Atlantic Frontier: Greenpeace, Oil and Sustainable Development.

Greenpeace Survey - Climate Change, Fossil Fuels and Civil Society

Introduction

I am sending this briefing and conducting this survey on behalf of Greenpeace UK. It is being sent to a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and agencies that have been vocal in the climate change and sustainability debates since 1992 (and in many cases for considerably longer), and have continued to play an active part in the political process since then. ( A list of the other agencies receiving these documents is available if you wish to see it.)

The purpose of this survey is not to elicit a yes/no/don't know response; analysis of such a complex matrix of issues in these terms is certain to add little to the debate. Rather, within civil society (civil society was helpfully described to me recently as the structures that fill the space between the family and the state) it is to attempt to initiate a discussion of how phasing out fossil fuels and introducing renewable energy sources can take place, given that such a transition is clearly explicit in some, and implicit in nearly all the international agreements concerning a sustainable future.

The results of this survey will be summarised for publication; it is not designed however to create a composite manifesto of views on sustainable development and climate change; its rather more limited goal is to make a concrete contribution to the debate surrounding the meaning and politics of sustainability and its relationship to climate change.

RIO + 5

June 1997 will see the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development: the Earth Summit. There will be a special session of the United Nations General Assembly to mark the occasion. Like any anniversary, the event will be perceived as a milestone: in this case not just a reminder of the original event itself, but also in the progress of the series of complex negotiations which lead up to the meeting, and continued to grow out of it.

Ongoing there remains a complex web of related agreements: the Framework Conventions on Biodiversity and Climate Change, a statement of principles for the management, conservation and sustainable development of the world's forests, and Agenda 21 - a comprehensive action plan to achieve a more sustainable pattern of development . In 1992 there was no consensus on the success or failure of the Earth Summit, but there can be little disagreement now that "sustainability" has become a global issue.

The Framework Convention on Climate Change

There is a definite but poorly defined relationship between these international legal instruments designed to protect the environment. The Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) was signed in 1992 at Rio, but grew out of a process that began with the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The FCCC committed governments party to the convention to agree measures that would protect the climate, "within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner". As a first step, this meant an non-binding commitment to return CO2emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000.(i)

In reality, merely stopping the growth of CO2 emissions would not adequately reduce the growth of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere - the driving force in the climate change process. Protection of the climate consistent with the terms of the FCCC means dramatic reductions of emissions of greenhouse gases - principally CO2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the UN appointed body of scientists studying climate change - has identified immediate cuts of 60% as necessary to keep concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere at 1990 levels.(ii) By 1995, the IPCC declared itself satisfied that human induced climate change was real and discernible.(iii)

So while there was a growing consensus among scientists on the nature of the climate problem and the scale of the response necessary to it, the decision makers, through FCCC negotiating process, have been slow to identify the ways that such emission reductions might be made. The first conference of the parties (COP 1) to the FCCC took place in 1995 in Berlin; that meeting delivered a mandate to begin negotiations to establish protocols for reduction. The Second Conference of the Parties in Geneva in 1996 saw more governments - including that of the UK - recognise the need for genuine reductions beyond the "return to" commitments of 1992. In spite of the best efforts of the fossil fuel industry - the oil and coal lobby - as well as some oil exporting countries , COP 3, scheduled for Kyoto in December this year, could still deliver some sort of legally binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions, at least in the developed world.

Agenda 21

Meanwhile the Agenda 21 process continues. As agreed at the Earth Summit, the UK government has produced a strategy for sustainable development, which in the words of the Prime Minister was committed to economic growth, but would "ensure that the price of growth did not become an intolerable bill for future generations".(iv) The size of a tolerable bill would be determined by "a hard-headed approach to sustainability based on good science and robust economics", as determined by UK Government departments, notably Environment, Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Trade and Industry and the Treasury.(v)

The UK national strategy considers both the process and principles of developing sustainability, as well as examining the sectors of the UK environment and economy which may need a change of direction in the light of those principles.These sectors include, among many others: global atmosphere, mineral resources - including extraction of fossil fuels, energy supply and use and transport. As well as the publication of the strategy, the Government announced the appointment of both of a panel of independent experts on sustainable development (The British Government Panel on Sustainable Development) and a Roundtable on Sustainable Development to advise on the process and progress of the strategy.

Progress?

So what is the state of the relationship of the climate and sustainability debates in 1997, five years after the agreements have come into effect? The UK - through a combination of recession and changes in the structure of its electricity market - is on track to meet the requirement to reduce its emissions of CO2 to 1990 levels by the year 2000 and has been forceful in commenting upon the performance of other signatories to the FCCC.(vi) Few commentators however have been impressed by the limited UK Government initiatives on energy efficiency or renewable energy.

The Government's own advisers - the British Government Panel on Sustainable Development - has recently been robust in its criticism of Government performance in the area of climate change and long term energy supplies. The panel observedthat development of renewable energy sources has been "piecemeal", and that the "short-termism" of the market - the Government's favoured means of developing energy markets and policies - will not "lead to development of renewable resources on the necessary scale" to address the demands of climate change beyond 2000. The panel goes on to recommend "continuing support for non-fossil fuel sources of energy"(vii). Currently renewable resources - even including technologies with large environmental impacts such as waste incineration and large-scale hydro-electric plant - only provide 2% of the UK electricity supply, and are the lowest in the European Union as a proportion of electricity consumption(viii).

The panel also observed that the availability of primary energy is unlikely to be a problem for the next 50 years: proven reserves of fossil fuels - 45 years for oil, 65 years for natural gas and 235 years for coal at present rates of use - should allow efforts and resources to be re-allocated to the development of renewable sources of energy . The validity of this observation however is not supported by Government expenditure: on solar photovoltaic energy, current expenditure plans show that the promotion of the fossil fuel industries in the UK will receive greater Government support than investment in the expansion of solar electric technology in the UK(ix).

It would be difficult to describe Government attitudes to this proposed shift in resources from fossil fuels to renewable resources as enthusiastic. The Department of Trade and Industry, as illustrated in this announcement of most recent licensing round for oil and gas exploration on the UK continental shelf, is still keen to extend "oil and gas exploration to new frontiers…the objective of the 17th round is to encourage exploration in new areas and so to continue the development of our oil and gas resources into the next century"(x).

The Reality Gap

The apparent gap between the official and commercial aspirations for future exploitation of fossil fuels in the UK, and the demands of responding to human induced climate change becomes even more difficult to reconcile when the arithmetic of carbon in the atmosphere is considered. Currently, concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere are 25% to 30% higher than in pre-industrial times - largely as a result of burning fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas. This extra carbon in the atmosphere has already warmed the atmosphere by 0.3 to 0.6 degrees over pre-industrial levels(xi). Globally, current patterns of consumption of these fuels are adding six billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere each year.

What is the precise relationship of this activity to committed future climate change?The answer to that question depends on many assumptions - changes in the amount and mixture of fossil fuels burned each year, the sensitivity of the climate to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the subsequent response of ecosystems to the increases in average global temperatures.Within conventional estimates, using conventional - and reputable - studies(xii) , a consensus emerges. The atmosphere can absorb no more - and quite possibly less - than 300 billion additional tonnes of carbon before the risk of crossing a threshold beyond which "risks of grave danger to ecosystems, and of non-linear responses [rapid amplification processes or positive feedbacks to the climate system] are expected to increase rapidly"(xiii).

Simple carbon arithmetic means that based upon current patterns of use, the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb carbon from fossil fuels -without further serious damage to the climate - is far exceeded by the carbon contained in the proven reserves of oil, coal and gas still in the ground. If the global intention is really intend to try to protect the climate from human interference, exploration and exploitation of further fossil fuels should be unthinkable. Instead, the global priority should be to begin the phase out of fossil fuels now. Projecting current patterns of consumption into the next century - burning all proven oil reserves, in addition to the gas and coal that would be consumed over the same period - means that fossil fuels and the dominant "carbon economy" have a future of less than 50 years(xiv).

So how can one ministry, the Department of Trade and Industry, within the UK Government encourage the exploration and exploitation of a resource - the hydrocarbon resources of the UK Continental Shelf - into the next century while another, the Department of the Environment, insists that the inevitable by-product using that resource - CO2 emissions - must be curtailed now(xv)? What is revealed by the fragmented nature of the sustainable energy/sustainable climate/sustainable development debate? It is in this context that at least some of the discussion of the relationship of climate change and sustainable development - either in terms of Government or civil society - must be held.

Survey Questions

Note: these questions are intentionally open-ended. Analysis of all responses will be qualitative, not quantitative; the goal is to begin to describe and construct a possible context for the relationship of the attempt to limit human-induced climate change and the definition of a "sustainable" future.

Agenda 21

What should the relationship be between the Agenda 21 process and the FCCC? Is the lack of a formal relationship between these two instruments a barrier to success?

Local Agenda 21

What role does the Local Agenda 21 process have to play in contributing to progress in meeting national goals for improving performance in areas directly relevant to climate change? (Can it go beyond the implementation/support for legislation like the Energy Conservation Act or the proposed Traffic Reduction Bill?)

Public consultation

a. How great is the need for some degree of public consultation on the need for future exploitation of UK fossil fuel resources (in the current commercial and environmental climate, such resources are bound to hydrocarbons/oil and gas)?

b. Would greater Parliamentary scrutiny of proposed developments - say in the area of the Atlantic Frontier/West of Shetland, create a political or commercial climate more likely to produce genuinely sustainable development?

Fossil fuel regime

When - or under what circumstances - will there be a clearly evident need for a "fossil-fuel regime", that is a set of controls on the production/development/ consumption of fossil fuels? should a similar regime be instituted to control/examine the impacts of "alternative" energy sources?

Carbon arithmetic

Do you believe, like Greenpeace - and others - that the policy imperatives of "carbon arithmetic"(5), as well as the complementary demands of the Agenda 21 process and the FCCC mean that the time has come - or at least is approaching - for a public statement of the intention at the very least for an end to the exploration, exploitation and ultimately of the use of fossil fuel reserves?
What do you think are the constraints on other members of civil society and indeed governments for making the same demands?

References

(1) 1997. Global Environment Outlook. Oxford University Press. And United Nations. 1997. Report of the Secretary-General to Commission on Sustainable Development, fifth session, 7-25 April 1997, E/CN.17/1997/2, 31 January 1997.

(2) IPCC. 1996. Climate Change 1995. The Science of Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

(3) Copies of this correspondence are available from Janice Harron, Programme Planning and Campaign Direction Unit, Greenpeace, Canonbury Villas, London N1 2PN

(4) Single issue in this sense means "transport" or "energy" rather than a perception of "environment" as a single issue.

(5) briefly outlined in the background paper to this survey, a more detailed version of this paper is available for those who wish to have it.

(i) United Nations. 1992. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Article 2.

(ii) WMO/UNEP. 1990. Climate Change: the IPCC scientific assessment. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. And IPCC. 1992. Climate Change 1992 - the supplementary report to the IPCC scientific assessment. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

(iii) IPCC. 1996. Climate Change 1995. The Science of Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

(iv) Department of Environment, et al. 1994. Sustainable development: the UK Strategy. HMSO. London.

(v) Department of Environment, et al. 1994. Sustainable development: the UK Strategy. HMSO. London.

(vi) John Gummer, Tuesday 18 February, BBC Radio 4, M.T.S transcript - Refernce: 4736

(vii) British Government Panel on Sustainable Development. 1997. Third Report. January 1997. [UK] Department of Environment, London.

(viii) Department of Trade and Industry. 1995. Energy Projections for the UK. (Energy Paper 65) London, HMSO.

(ix) Department of Trade and Industry. 1996. The Government's Expenditure Plans 1996-97 to 1998-99. HMSO, London.

(x) Department of Trade and Industry. 1995. Press Release: Richard Page extends oil and gas exploration to new frontiers. P/95/816. 21 November 1995. [London.]

(xi) IPCC. 1992. Climate Change 1992 - the supplementary report to the IPCC scientific assessment. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

(xii) IPCC Scientific Assessment, 1992; SEI, Responding to Climate Change: Tools for Policy Development, 1990; Krause, et al, Energy policy in the Greenhouse: 1989; BP, Statistical Review of world energy, 1992.

(xiii) SEI, Responding to Climate Change: Tools for Policy Development, 1990

(xiv) This calculation is based upon a global fuel mix reported in British Petroleum. 1992. Statistical Review of World Energy. Changes in the global mix, as well as the projected increase in demand for oil resulting from global increases in road transport may alter this time frame, but not significantly.