Revenue streams versus science
The graph below shows the UK revenues from North Sea oil and gas as a percentage of GDP over time, you can see that between 1979 and 1986 the revenues were an investor’s dream opportunity to increase their wealth.
Revenues from North Sea oil and gas – Source, Institute for Fiscal Studies Tax FS Tax.
The rise in North Sea Oil revenues in this period, coincided in part with Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister. The UK economy was in a parlous state, and her belief was in free market capitalism as pioneered by Milton Freidman and others. Her government’s policies benefited from increased tax revenues from companies exploiting the North Sea Oil and Gas reserves, it also received income from granting licences to those companies seeking to explore and exploit the fossil fuels under the sea, as anyone who has seen the film the Oil Machine will be aware of.
In the USA both Federal and State Governments, and in Canada State and Provincial Governments, benefitted significantly from the revenues from fossil fuel companies and the employment opportunities created; one particular province in Canada that benefited was Alberta, because of its abundance of fossil fuels including extensive tar sands. In the UK, Scotland benefitted as well in terms of revenue and employment opportunities.
The American Petroleum Institute has been the voice of the fossil fuel industry for decades. It was set up to protect the interest of the fossil fuel industry and it created its own Climate Task Force. Using spurious, now discredited, data sources they claimed that there was a no cast iron correlation between the increase in the burning of fossil fuel and the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere.
Investors, both individual and corporate, in fossil fuel rich states around the world have been the beneficiaries of the fossil fuel industries created. It has made billionaires of individuals, and has enabled pension funds to accrue significant funds for the benefit of stakeholders in those pension schemes. It has enabled both democratic and autocratic states to fund their activities both at home and overseas.
Democratic states where wealth is accumulated through market forces, the basis of capitalism, have significantly benefited financially and thereby gained power to influence the public discourse to their ongoing advantage. Such wealth may have been accumulated by their direct investment in fossil fuel industries, or by investment in industries that rely on fossil fuels to meet their energy needs.
With wealth comes power, both political and economic, and powerlessness to those who do not have it. In autocratic countries such power often subjugates those it rules over. It can be a major causal factor of political and social conflict that can spill over into armed conflict with devastating consequences for the affected populations, for global warming, and for environment and biodiversity.
Over time climate change researchers accumulated significant quantities of data that have demonstrated causal links between rises in fossil fuel use, its resultant increase release of CO2 into the atmosphere, and its contribution to the rise in average global temperatures. An example of the consequences of these relationships was clearly demonstrated in the 21st century by devastating forest fires, which at times conventional firefighting strategies failed to readily extinguish. See here
1979 was a pivotal moment when the first World Climate Conference was organised by the World Metrological Organisation, with its stated objective “to foresee and prevent potential man-made climate changes that might be adverse to the wellbeing of humanity”. It was attended by scientists from a wide range of scientific disciplines. The Conference led to the establishment of the World Climate Programme and ultimately to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In the 1980s there was a gradual awakening by oil company executives of the relationship between the burning of fossil fuels and the “Greenhouse Effect”. This was the result of a body of work published on subjects such as, global climate change and its impact on rising sea levels, the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet. In 1983 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the USA released a report entitled “Can We Delay Greenhouse Warming” (click on this link then click on the box named “Get This Item”). This report predicted “Current estimates suggest a 2 degrees C increase could occur by the middle of the next century … 5 degrees C by 2100”. This prediction was based on the continuing growth in consuming fossil fuels.
While governments have made pledges to reduce fossil fuel consumption as a result of agreements reached at the IPCC conferences, they have not readily fully followed up on those pledges. Also fossil fuel related industries have indulged in a degree of “Green Washing” to protect their interests, and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) see here have used their power to control crude oil prices, which covertly has been a lever in exerting a degree of control over the economies of some other countries.
The current UK government continues to claim how much the UK economy has decarbonised since they have been in power, however they do not acknowledge overtly how much of UK businesses have off shored their carbon footprint, facilitated by globalisation. According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) the UK is a net importer of Greenhouse Gases as a result of off shoring see here
Consequences of Global Warming
All of the above is about the burning of fossil fuel for energy on which industrial growth has historically relied but there are other factors to consider too. From fossil fuels we have plastics and agricultural fertilisers, and many other products that have their own individual negative impacts on the planet on which all species live, and sadly many have failed to survive and more are destined to become extinct.
Over time we have experienced increasingly less predictable extremes of weather across the world, which has caused infrastructure damage, loss of life and that have negatively impacted the natural world.
There have been severe hurricanes with their disastrous damaging winds and rain, severe rainstorms that flooded people out of their homes and have significantly negatively impacted on their livelihoods; historically subsistence farmers in the developing world have been the ones that suffered most, but now it is becoming more evident in affluent countries around the world, including the UK this past winter and spring.
Increases in air and sea temperatures and ocean acidification negatively impact on the marine food chain from phytoplankton to apex predators, also impacting human beings especially those who rely on the oceans as a main food source.
Droughts have caused an increase in desertification of once fertile lands where crops fail to grow in sufficient quantities to feed the local population, a consequence of this is mass migration in their attempt to survive. Droughts also increase frequency and intensity of wild fires, and can create a lack of water to extinguish them. Wild fires are becoming a significant contributor to the changing weather extremes. They are also disastrous for ecology and biodiversity of the areas affected.
Sadly, an often-overlooked consequence of fossil fuel consumption and climate change is that it can be the root cause of conflict while it has also been an enabler, increasing the ability for nations to engage in conflict over diminishing resources. See example here
The fight back, some positive outcomes
Greater awareness of the consequences of climate change are now bringing some behaviour changes.
Insurers and investors are becoming more aware of the negative financial risks for them in committing their resources into fossil fuel related investments. In Canada insurance companies have become more and more reluctant to insure fossil fuel extraction and processing facilities in areas prone to widespread intensive wildfires or at risk of pollution to the environment and biodiversity loss which is unacceptable in the public eye.
Governments around the world have been introducing legislation and policies to reduce CO2 emissions, the impact of CO2 emissions and other pollutants on the environment by putting pressure on organisation and individuals to change their behaviours, some with carrot and some with stick policies.
However, where politicians prioritise their political ideology and their perceived economic imperative, the need for economic growth, sadly they do have a record of back sliding, pushing back on the phasing out the sale of new fossil fuelled cars in the UK by five years for spurious reasons, one of which the fear of not getting re-elected.
Also, politicians and public figures set poor examples of the behaviour changes required to achieve net zero by their own behaviours, such as travelling by private planes, helicopters, and using large fossil fuelled vehicles. Some of these examples have recently been put in the public domain via the media but this can sometimes be done for political point scoring rather than other motives.
We have seen a rise in public protest group in recent years, some advocating peaceful protest and campaigning activities and other engaging in more disruptive protest, which tends to have a negative reaction from the general public and draw ire from those whose self-interests are negatively impacted.
However on the positive side it keeps climate change and global warming more into the public consciousness as did the actions of Suffragettes and their activities brought change overtime.
Sadly, disruptive protest has been countered by governments introducing legislation penalising such protests, with some protestors being incarcerated as a result of their activities. However that has helped keep the issue of the negative consequences of burning fossil fuels in the public discourse.
Going forward, more behaviour change will be required at both the individual, business, corporate and the governmental level if we are to limit the negative impact of climate change and biodiversity loss.
We have become used to hearing ourselves referred to as a consumer society – how about moving towards being citizens first, rather than a consumers? Making changes to how we live our lives will help others around us to see what is possible, the ripple effect, so that choices that might once have been seen as radical become more mainstream. This may be happening already with plant based eating.
We all have our voices and our votes and need to make good use of them. When politicians believe they will only get our vote when they commit to policies on climate change and biodiversity loss that will have a genuine and sustained impact, then maybe they will commit to those policies.