Monthly Archives: March 2011

I’ve just been to a presentation of BP’s Energy Outlook 2030. This was launched in January, but has only just reached us here in the South Downs. BP’s head of energy economics, Paul Appleby, got something of a rough ride from the assmbled, mainly student, audience, about BP shirking its responsibilities by not pressing politicians to do more on climate policy. The predictable defence is that BP takes the climate issue seriously, but is meeting its customers needs for fossil fuels, is accountable to its shareholders, can’t do things that means it will operate at a loss, and that ultimately governments have to make public policy.

I have some sympathy with this position – BP is a company and it’s doing what you’d expect a company to do. But it’s a position that implicitly raises an interesting deeper question. Continue reading →

The unexpected political turbulence in oil-producing Arab states has seen a 70s revival in discussions of an oil price shock . But Jeremy Warner at the Telegraph has done the ‘math’, as he puts it, on likely demand going forward and argues that an inexorable thirst for the black stuff  in Asia will effectively lock in a much higher oil price. Continue reading →

Several commentators on recent events in Libya have noted the hypocrisy with which British politicians happy to do arms deals with Gaddafi (and other dictators) in the past have suddenly turned their backs on their old friends and are calling for democracy.

Of course the deals (and ultimately the hypocrisy) are driven by oil. A key issue for a democratically elected Libyan government, if that comes about, is how it would handle oil revenues. Continue reading →

A number of the essays in Going for Growth, a new book edited by my colleague Will Straw, are well worth reading. Two in particular stand out as being of significance in the climate change debate.

One of us is highly likely to return soon to the issue of innovation and so we’ll set Stian Westlake’s contribution to one side for now. Gerry Holtham’s call for a public vehicle to carry private sector investment into major infrastructure projects will have particular resonance to those currently involved in the Green Investment Bank debate. Continue reading →