Oil and climate change

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has the responsibility of collecting information on climate change and presenting it to policy makers. This has a big impact on energy policy, particularly relating to the use of fossil fuels and release of greenhouse gases. The 5th IPCC report was recently published and it makes some bold statements about carbon dioxide and global warming. At the very start of the report it states that:

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia." 

IPCC, Summary For Policy Makers, 2013, page 2

The report then goes onto make statements about the drivers of climate change stating that "The largest contribution to total radiative forcing is caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750" (IPCC, page 11). In addition to this it says that it is "extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming" (IPCC, page 15). This is largely based on research into climate forcing, research from Hohne et al 2011 demonstrated that the observed global warming could not have been produced by natural climate forcing: it requires the additional anthropogenic CO2 to produced observed changes. This is supported by many other research groups such as the Tyndall Centre and the Met Office. Finally the report goes on to warn policy makers about the effects on carrying on with business as usual. 

"Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions."

IPCC, Summary For Policy Makers 2013, page 17

The recommendations from the IPCC, which represents many climate change research groups, is that is we want to reduce the rate of global warming: we have to reduce carbon emissions. Research into the impacts of global tipping points suggests that changing atmospheric composition is a major driver of biodiversity and ecosystem change, even if the impact is gradual rather than abrupt change (Brook et al 2013, Trends in Ecology and Evolution). Therefore, to reduce the impact on biodiversity, climate change and ecosystems we should reduce CO2 emissions. In 2010 32% of global energy supply came from oil, even though this has reduced from 1973 where 45% came from oil, it is still a hugely substantial figure (IEA, Energy Statistics, 2012). So despite extremely convincing evidence about the impact of CO2 emission from oil, it could be several decades before we see a significant reduction in global oil production.