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Why climate protection requires an end to oil exploration
The world’s ecosystems and social structures are threatened by climate change. The greatest single threat comes from fossil fuels: oil, coal and gas. If we burn more than a quarter of discovered fossil fuel reserves we cannot stay within safe limits of climate change. Industrialised world governments have recognised this threat by signing up to the climate convention, yet they continue to encourage the expansion of the fossil fuel reserve by approving frontier oil exploration. Barely noticed amidst the election fever, last month the DTI granted licenses to oil companies to open up the "Atlantic Frontier", north-west of the UK. It was the culmination of a project, initiated as long ago as 1969, which is no longer justifiable. This development now constitutes a deep conflict at the heart of government between oil policy and responsibility for climate protection. The new Government can only resolve that conflict if they recognise that expanding fossil fuel supply is dangerous and outdated. There is now wide acceptance that climate change is happening. Governments acknowledge that it will change many of the basic parameters of life on earth: the availability of fresh water, the productivity of land and oceans, protection from the spread of disease, and the security of our homes against the ravages of extreme weather. Governments from around the world signed up to the Climate Convention at Rio in 1992. By doing so, they agreed to limit the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that "would prevent dangerous human-made interference with the climate system". This legal objective means that its main responsibility is now to ensure that the majority of fossil fuels remain in the ground. However, when Tony Blair goes to the meeting of the Climate Convention in Japan at the end of the year, to agree on industrialised world action on climate protection, there is little prospect that fossil fuels will be on the agenda. The CO2 reductions being discussed in the convention negotiations focus almost entirely on 'end of pipe' controls and are not set by any scientific assessment of the atmosphere. So far, the negotiations have all been about the symptoms of a dangerous energy system, expressed as greenhouse gas emissions, rather than the cause of the problem, which is fossil fuels. It is an absurd approach that is blind to the effects of the growing supply of cheap fossil fuels to emissions control. It is a process that has allowed the previous government to unlock a major new supply of cheap fossil fuels from the Atlantic Frontier whilst attacking other countries for their lack of action on emissions of greenhouse gases. The approach that climate protection requires is the establishment of natural limits to climate change. The scientific work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change make it possible to estimate how much fossil fuel can be extracted and burnt, to stay within temperature and sea level rise limits. If a limit of a 1 degree Celsius temperature rise and a 20 cm rise in sea level is adopted, above which scientists believe that "extensive ecosystem damage" may occur, this results in a limit of just over 200 billion tonnes of carbon that can be burnt as fossil fuel over the next hundred years. The establishment of this 'carbon budget' has two profound implications for energy policy: The first is that Fossil fuel use has to end. At current rates of burning our 'budget' is exhausted in less than 40 years. If rising fossil fuel consumption is taken into account it gives us less than 30 years. A fossil fuel phase out would allow for a planned transition to renewable forms of energy during this timeframe. The alternative is to continue as usual and face the prospect of an enormous 'oil shock' when the budget is exhausted. Secondly, the carbon budget reveals the true madness of continued oil exploration. Given that existing fossil fuel reserves stand at over 1000 billion tonnes of carbon, this means that 75% of economically recoverable fossil fuels can never be burnt. Every new license given for oil exploration expands this reserve and makes the task of staying within the natural limits of climate change more difficult. For a new government eager to show their green credentials 1997 provides ample opportunity to start the international negotiations for a fossil fuel phase out. The first priority for the phase out is to put the lid on the expansion of fossil fuel reserve. If the Blair Government is serious about climate protection it should revoke the Atlantic Frontier licenses. It should heed the advice of the former Chancellor, Dennis Healey: " When in a hole, first stop digging".
Matthew Spencer
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