UK Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas Formed

[UPDATE 10/07/2007] The All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO) now has a website: http://www.appgopo.org.uk/

Bloomberg coverage:

U.K. Parliament Members Form `Peak Oil' Group to Study Reserves

The U.K. parliament formed a group to study peak oil, the theory that world oil production is approaching its zenith, as British lawmakers face up to the country's future as an energy importer.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas, which held its first meeting June 26, comprises 32 members of the House of Commons, or lower chamber, and seven from the House of Lords, or upper chamber.

It aims to collate predictions for when production may peak and consider the implications for energy policy, rather than push a particular view, said the group's chairman, John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, central England.

This report is from James Howard of PowerSwitch.

On Tuesday 26th June 2007, Tony Blair’s last full day as Prime Minister, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO) held its inaugural Annual General Meeting, ensuring that the issue of declining global oil supplies will feature much more prominently in Parliament in the Gordon Brown era.


Palace of Westminster. Photography by Deryc Sands.
APPGs are composed of politicians from all political parties and have members from the House of Commons and the House of Lords. APPGOPO will enable interested MPs and Lords to discuss Peak Oil and all its surrounding issues. The interest by MPs and Lords in Peak Oil, and indeed the All Party Parliamentary Group, was much higher than the average Peak Oil commentator would expect. Often it is charged that politicians are not willing to talk about such a difficult subject, but the APPGOPO has the support of over twenty MPs and Lords. This actually makes it the largest political grouping looking at Peak Oil in the world.

The AGM, held at 6.30pm in Committee Room 19 in the House of Commons, made the election of officers the first piece of business. Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has been vocal on this issue since becoming an MP, was elected as Chair, while Colin Challen MP, highly respected for his work on pushing the issue of Climate Change with the APPGCC, and Lord Robin Teverson took the positions of Vice Chair. Labour MP Austin Mitchell, with 30 years of Parliamentary experience, took the position of Secretary, while Mark Williams, Liberal Democrat MP for Ceredigion, was elected Treasurer. David Drew, Labour MP for Stroud, was also present. Many more Parliamentarians have offered their support for the group, but could not attend.

The AGM also established the initial parameters for its mission. It will use available Parliamentary processes to raise the issue, and there is likely to be regular meetings, open to the public, discussing the issue. The first APPGOPO event may take place before the end of July. The group wants to look at the technological and geological issues, the geopolitical issues, the government viewpoints and those of the industry, the impact of alternative fuels such as biofuels, how peak oil and climate change relate, and mitigation and solution options. Although the group will not produce its own prediction for the date of Peak Oil, it will analyse the various predictions that exist.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas is the result of several months work of collaboration between PowerSwitch.org.uk, The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC), and John Hemming MP. Although it has no formal powers, and receives no funding, this group is a vital step in raising the necessary awareness of the issue, from which a rational response to the challenges can come. Educating key decision makers and challenging established views on the issue is a task this group must, and can, achieve. The formation group also provides further evidence that Peak Oil is far removed from the days of being a fringe subject. Many of those concerned about the impending decline of global oil supplies may take hope that a significant group of their representatives are finally going to speak about the Peak openly in the corridors of power.

Good work James for your part in setting this up. There are some massive challenges to bring around UK parliamentary thinking. Powerful figures in all the major parties seem opposed to peak oil.

Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats and former chief economist of BP has written articles decrying peak oil theory with traditional economists faith that more money will bring forth all the oil we need.

Lord Lamont still has great influence in Tory circles and his recent remarks about how it is unjustified to place an economic burden on this generation to prevent climatic change in 100 years time because people then will be so much richer than we are now places him firmly in the cornucopian corner and one can fairly predict he will dismiss peak oil if indeed he has heard of it. I am sure there are many more in his party who share his mindset and I am not sure how far Tory Leader David Cameron's green policies extend beyond the decorative

I do not know if our new Prime Minister, Gorden Brown has heard of peak oil but his statements that it is OPEC's duty to produce half a million more barrels a day of oil do not give great hopes.

Even so, the group is a great advance from what we had before where a lecture on peak oil at Westminster by Colin Campbell drew only a handful of Members of Parliament.

Good news to see the issue taken more notice of, the UK is unique being fairly small with huge potential for renewable energy, an experienced nuclear sector, and at one time a decent railway network. Possible problem of having lots of people without masses of growing land, but I am hopeful we can make big changes towards the future as long as we get started soon as possible.

A question from across the pond: is a All Party Parliamentary Group similar to a US House or Senate committee or is it equivalent to the peak oil caucus Roscoe Bartlett formed?

I think the nearest to a house or senate committee is called a select committee in the UK:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldselect.htm

They often have expert testimony, and people who want to find the facts rather than political games

I think it's the approximate equivalent of Roscoe Bartlett's peak oil caucus.

James & Chris - you guys at PowerSwitch and ODAC need to be congratulated on bringing about this significant development.

Just in case any of the MPs and Lords tune into this post - once again here's my chart of UK trade balance plummeting further into the red with increasing oil, gas and coal imports. Whilst there is room to provarocate about global energy depletion, this is reality in the UK today. Urgent action is required to incentivise indigenous energy production (oil, gas, coal and reneawables (but not biofuels)) and to seriously reduce consumption - in the first instance I'm in favour of legislating for car engine size and power and setting lower speed limits (even though I enjoy driving fast powerful cars myself).


It's going to be very interesting to see what sort of line they take. Gordon Brown's last effort on oil prices was "I'm on the phone to OPEC"... this get to grips stuff is a bit more weighty.

My take is NO. 10. and 11. haven't demonstrated any understanding of the issue for the last decade.

Kudos to powerswitch.. well done

Boris
London

My take is NO. 10. and 11. haven't demonstrated any understanding of the issue for the last decade.

David Strahan writes in his book “The Last Oil Shock” and this week in the Guardian newspaper that the Bush/Blair Iraq invasion was a response to the looming world oil shortage. Maybe this doesn’t demonstrate understanding but it does demonstrate awareness.

Was it them? Iraq and US hubris seem to be irrevocably connected to oil tankers and the persian gulf... but did the white house and NO 10 really have a clue or were they being steered?

I think the white house or at least the apparatus of the US admin did have awareness but NO 10?

still water under the bridge now. The issue is avoiding some sort of blame game in regards to "where have all the oil exports gone?".

It is a strange world of contradictions. I do not read Blair or Brown as being "aware" despite actually agreeing with the thrust of Strahan's piece.

Boris
london

I'm glad we have a cross party group setup here in the UK but I'd like to know what their remit is. I'm almost certain they have the PMs ear as Gordon was saying we need greater transparency of SA reserves way back around 2000 and he must be fully aware of the NS decline issues -I think he used to get a presentation/update of the situation several times a year.

Khebab has done some good work on UK decline and I discuss the UK situation on my site as a NET exporter>Importer switch model: http://www.megatrends2020.com/html/chapter1.html

The UK will be acutely impacted by PO within 5 years.

Regards, Nick.

The UK has a similar situation with natural gas supplies coming from the North Sea, since about 1/3 of our electricity comes from nat gas. What are the issues with peak gas? I understand there is much more of it than oil, however it is used for heating electricity and fertilizer production, so any increase in price could have serious economic effects, whereas a supply distruption could be a complete disaster. Horray for global warming and milder winters :S

I think this is the singlemost important governmental signal I've ever read regarding anything ....

Except from the Sweedes who "claimed they will go petro-free by 2020"- I reckon they are way behind on this goal, thoug, I mean as they still roll out those large petrol-guzzling Saabs n' Volvos...

I bet they don't sell many in their own country thought ;)