Category Archives: Uncategorized

Back in the day when the dominant global negotiation focussed on trade liberalisation rather than climate protection, the then US trade representative (and now World Bank President) Robert Zoellick ruffled European feathers by appearing ambivalent as to the future of the WTO process. Even in 2001, before the ill-fated Doha ‘development’ round of talks was launched, the US made it clear that bilateral or regional agreements would serve the US well in the absence of successful multilateralism.

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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 →

Presumably, then, to many of those who’ve commented on yesterday’s post and to NEF and others, today’s confirmation of UK 2010 Q4 economic contraction is good news (the graph is from ONS data).

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I responded to a piece by Viki Johnson of New Economic Foundation on the China Dialogue website. This is a re-post of my response, which you can also read here:

Yesterday, as part of chinadialogue’s series on well-being economics, Viki Johnson of the new economics foundation argued that endless economic growth is neither possible nor necessary. Here Andrew Pendleton, associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), responds.

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Grist posted the results of a US poll earlier this week showing the popularity of alternative forms of energy. Remarkably, its article is without substance or much commentary, which is why I’m merely pasting in the poll results here.

Three points of interest: First, a Senate bill focused on clean energy (ill defined in the question, but nevertheless pretty clear) is very popular. Second, a drilling bill is also fairly popular. Third, no mention of climate change. Continue reading →

Our good friends over at The Breakthrough Institute have a new report out on the rebound effect – the idea that as energy efficiency increases, we use part of the savings we make to consume more energy, and overall the impacts of energy efficiency are much less than we think. This comes on the heels of Steve Sorrell’s excellent review of the subject in 2009.

There is plenty of evidence that the rebound effect is real. But it would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that this means it is impossible to reduce energy intensity Continue reading →

Mckinsey have just produced a report for the European Gas Advocacy Forum saying that Europe could hit its 2050 emissions target (an 80% cut on 1990 levels) for almost €1 trillion less if it built more gas rather than wind. Leaving aside the fact that Mckinsey also recently worked on the ECF’s Roadmap 2050 project on how the EU could meet its targets without gas at reasonable cost, they are not alone in making the cost argument for gas. Continue reading →