What does peak oil mean for climate change?
In addition to the list of objections people use to deny climate change (“it’s the volcanoes,” “mars and the other planets are warming up, too, so it must be the sun” etc.) we can now expect a new one to be added, which will sound like, “We don’t have to worry: there isn’t enough fossil fuel left to be a problem” or “You still want to limit carbon emissions? The market is already doing that as a result of high oil prices and we can’t damage the economy even further.” In other words, peak oil will make legislated carbon reductions more difficult, not less. And the arguments actually are reasonable: carbon emissions will go down regardless of legislation because of peak oil — even if we move with no restraint to unsequestered coal (more on that in a future post but if you can’t wait, read Richard Heinberg’s piece, linked in the report section below). It also means that in an environment of continually diminishing energy availability, the voluntary carbon offset market will likely collaps
