The “You and Yours” programme on BBC Radio 4 this week held a studio discussion on Peak Oil, with energy investment banker Matt Simmons, peak oil educator Richard Heinberg and the Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil John Hemming MP. The 12 minute discussion can be heard here and includes discussion of the options open to the UK government, including Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs).

Last month I attended an Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) meeting called to announce their latest research into personal carbon allowances. Polly Toynbee was invited to chair the meeting, and was clearly impressed with what she heard as she has now written a very positive article about TEQs in her column in the Guardian. In it she reminds us of DEFRA’s description of the scheme as “ahead of its time” and derides the Government’s delay in moving towards implementation.

The IPPR have now joined our challenge to DEFRA’s decision to delay a full feasibility study into TEQs, announcing that their research found that the public are far better disposed towards personal carbon allowances than DEFRA claim, and much prefer the idea to carbon taxation or upstream carbon trading (IPPR’s research took the time to explain the three schemes rather more thoroughly than DEFRA had, which certainly helped on this score).

I’m back from this year’s Climate Camp, and was deeply impressed with what I found there, both in terms of the organisation of the site (carried out largely by social anarchists) and the attitude and behaviour of the protesters.

The Camp is still running as I write, and I know large numbers of people are remaining to clear the site of all traces of our presence (in line with the request of the landowner), but for me it has been the most enjoyable, inspiring and re-energising of weeks. Judging by the media response I wasn’t alone in this. Read more »

Since my earlier review of Burn Up I have discovered a comment on the film posted yesterday by Jeremy Leggett, one of the few with any media profile to openly discuss the interplay of peak oil and climate change.

In his piece Leggett asks: “Why do the carbon-club lobbyists and contrarians do what they do? What is in their heads as they go about their work? Surely they must see the power of the emerging evidence that the threat is real, and massive? … I don’t have an explanation.”

This is a question I have devoted a lot of thought to, and I will venture an answer. Read more »

I have just watched the BBC’s outstanding thriller Burn Up, starring Rupert Penry-Jones, Marc Warren, Bradley Whitford and Neve Campbell (trailer available here).

It is a dramatic account of the intrigue, betrayal, sex and violence surrounding characters in the oil industry, international diplomacy and the environmental movement in the build up to the international conference that will decide on the successor to the Kyoto Protocol. For those who haven’t yet seen it, be aware that the discussion below the cut contains spoilers. Read more »

Thanks to the Oil Drum’s Peak Oil Media Watch I recently came across this fascinating video clip from the “Fast Money” programme on American business news channel CNBC. In the extract the studio panel are discussing the rise in oil prices and - as is the show’s theme - how to make money from it.

Their studio guest is Joe Terranova, who appears to be a typical energy investment type (though with an incredibly expressive face!), but their phone linkup is to Matthew Simmons, Chairman of Simmons & Company International Ltd, who is one of the very few high-profile figures to have predicted the current oil price rises, and who has been raising the peak oil issue for some years now. The mismatch in their perspectives is spectacular, especially from 4 minutes in. Read more »

My mother pointed out to me that on Saturday Colin Challen MP, Chair of the UK Government’s All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, had a letter published in the Guardian.

After numerous other eminently sensible suggestions about how the Government should be stepping up its response to climate change he concluded with the following:

“And most urgently we need to recognise that early carbon reductions are the most important step, and that will only happen with rapid behavioural change, which means some form of carbon rationing.

In this last respect, for any minister or potential minister to say the time for personal carbon allowances has not yet come illustrates either deep cynicism, defeatism or complacency, or perhaps a combination of all three.” Read more »