Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
Seems like something that improved fuel efficiency standards could have mitigated, but instead they were essentially unchanged in the US for about 30 years from the early '80s to the early '10s. By 2010, European and Japanese Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards were about half of what North American ones were. And as a result, in 2010 the US and Canada were #1 and #2 in the world in road sector gasoline consumption per capita, nearly twice as high as the next highest peer country (Australia) and about 7x higher than the EU average.
Blame consumers all you want, but it would have been relatively trivial for the government to do what most peer countries were doing by increasing efficiency requirements, which would have led to a significant reduction in fuel usage. But they didn't, largely because of lobbying by oil companies and North American automakers.
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Sorry but I just don't think you and Mathgod / others are accurately capturing things here. I also am not even sure what exactly is being debated so why don't we make clear what issues are at stake. I am further not saying you're wrong or that lobbying efforts have not happened nor am I debating the effectiveness of them in steering political agenda. However I definitely take issue with oil company lobbyists having some kind of material impact on consumer demand. No. Just no.
However the crux of the issue of climate change is (we think?) too much use of fossil fuels. Let's assume this is correct and personally I am definitely willing to believe that.
Here is the note from National Bank this morning: "
The headline from the June IEA report that was released this morning is ‘23 oil demand to exceed pre-pandemic levels. Not only is oil demand expected to exceed pre-covid levels, the IEA continues to see demand tailwinds driven by China lifting oil consumption by 2.2 mmb/d next year vs. 1.8 mmb/d in ‘22. This demand growth next year also comes in ahead of non-OPEC supply growth of 1.8 mmb/d (led by the US) which is lower than the 1.9 mmb/d the IEA is looking for this year. In terms of OPEC+, the IEA acknowledges risk to Russian production and producers outside of the Middle East. As well the IEA assumes Libyan volumes will recover but events as of late are a reminder that Libya is anything but a reliable producer"
Use of fossil fuels is because populations are rising. Third world countries are modernizing, and adapting to "western" ways of life. Respectfully, you can go on about "evil oil companies" all you want but the reality is all they are doing is trying to make as much money as they can by selling a product, which is filling a need. Rising commodity prices are a market function of
demand. You can't look at any market or system and say that the only ones responsible for a problem in order to find a solution are the suppliers. This is akin to drug dealers selling products to addicts, wherein you can't simply just continually combat drug dealers and jail them and think the problem goes away when you have a demand for a product and an addict. Consumers, the public and the demand side needs to change, but how do you do that when populations are increasing and huge countries modernizing and demand
rising?
So you may say well Mr.Coffee, the demand side is being hoodwinked by the oil companies. And I would reply really? This is where energy literacy needs to come in, and this is something I have been saying for
years. The people who are worried about climate change are the same people that should be leading the charge in changing energy systems and how humans interact with energy and demand. Indeed there are many people and companies actively involved in this field right now. How did they overcome the evil oil companies lobbying?
Oil companies lobbying is not the horse that leads the carriage of energy demand. You have it backwards. Oil demand is up because people use it. A lot of it. Not because Exxon tells you to. Come on now. Perhaps I misinterpreted what you guys are getting at or insinuating with the whole "lobby" thing, but even if it was an issue, it definitely is not the one to focus on. Snap the demand.
Lastly, let's assume we force all oil companies to stop production or go out of business or whatever, can't lobby- whatever. What do you think happens? I am willing to predict that, just like almost every other country on earth save for a few (the minority, to be sure) western countries, nations themselves will pick up the slack and start their own production. Why? Because people need it.