THE CARBON WAR

340
The Winning of The Carbon War
month before the Paris summit. We can expect more accretion to the snowball
in 2016. We shouldn’t be surprised if the flight of capital from fossil fuels turns
into an avalanche.
In mid November 2013, in Berlin, we went on our first street demonstration.
In the two years to follow, as the activists from Avaaz, 350.org and other
organisations wove their bottom-up magic, these protests became increasingly
potent in projecting public anguish about global warming. Christiana Figueres
has said that she knew we would win when she witnessed the massive street
protests in New York in September 2014. The success in Paris will have emboldened
and energised a global movement already brimming with youthful vigour.
We can expect all would-be foot-dragger governments and corporations to
face higher levels of peaceful public protest, in all its varied and increasingly
innovative forms, in the transition.
In December 2013, we joined military and other experts in energy security
for our first discussion of oil-supply concerns. I laid out my fears for a global
supply shortfall as I held them at the time. As I write, global oil production is
descending from its highest-ever level at nearly 97 million barrels. Is that the
global peak? We will only know in the rear-view mirror, after the passage of
more time.
The UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security that
I convened in 2006 concluded in 2010 that the global peak of oil production
would happen in 2015, at around 92 million barrels a day. Maybe we got the year
right, but we underestimated the amplitude: like so many others, including in
the oil industry, we did not foresee the extent to which the US industry would
be able to keep lifting shale oil production by feasting on junk debt. We also
underestimated erosion of demand around the world.
There is still cause for concern about supply though. The protracted low oil
price since late 2014 has cut the number of active drill rigs deeply. And if you
are drilling less and less, at some point production has to drop. Improvements
in the efficiency of production processes, such as those achieved by American
shale drillers, can only go so far. If that 97 million barrels a day in August
2015 was the global peak, the fall since can still slide into the the accelerating
collapse that I and others have worried about so much – not least the International
Energy Agency, until their about-face in 2012. Then the price would go
right back up to levels that threaten economies with recession and worse. This
volatility-potential of oil is another huge incentive to accelerate clean energy.
What to expect with oil supply, in the transition? I have to admit I am
unsure now, beyond predicting more bankruptcies among US oil and gas