Business as Usual or Willing to Change? – Emerging Trends – Where We Are Now
If we pursue business as usual to its logical conclusion; assuming that economic growth is still possible in a world needing a drastic cut to its carbon emissions and fail to prepare for the reality of dwindling oil supplies, the world will be one which has done nothing to adapt its energy system for the inevitable shocks it is facing. Nationally, the failure to engage in a concerted programme of far-reaching energy conservation could be catastrophic. As the UK struggles to import sufficient gas to make up the shortfall of its own plummeting supplies, the UK may have to make some tough choices about where the priorities for that energy lie. By 2010, the UK will be importing one-third of its natural gas, and by 2020, 80%. By 2013, the cost of importing oil and gas could reach £100bn a year, which if nothing is done will continue to grow each year, having a disastrous impact on an economy already reeling from the recession1.
We will see highly volatile oil prices, interruptions to supply, geopolitics shifting increasingly in favour of those who still hold energy reserves, sharply rising fuel poverty, and, most probably, blackouts and rationing. With focus, determination and an honest assessment of our situation, these are all avoidable. Like any addict whose addiction is out of control, without a co-ordinated, focused and committed ‘detox’ programme, the likelihood of the addiction taking the addict down with it is very high. From a climate change perspective, we need to break our dependence on fossil fuels as soon as possible.
While climate change says we should break our oil addiction, peak oil says we will have no choice in the matter.
Any approach that strategically navigates our way out of our energy predicament must be based on the following principles;
- Clear understanding and awareness of how energy is used
- Major reduction in use of energy at all levels of society
- Severe reduction in use of products with high embodied energy
- High priority for investment of time and finance in energy efficiency
- Recognition of the vulnerability of conventional energy supplies
- Development and provision of renewable energy supplies must be prioritised and brought on stream
- Rapid reduction in use of fossil fuel based energy
- Equitable approach to the sharing of all resources
What follows is one version of how energy security might become more localised and sustainable over the next 21 years.
Footnotes
- These figures are forecasts taken from Chamberlin, S. (2009) The Transition Timeline. Green Books/Transition Network [↩]
Leave a comment
If you wish to comment on a particular paragraph
and quote the relevant number in your comment.