Last Thursday the conference “Planet Under Pressure” concluded in London and they have now released a ”State of the Planet Declaration”:
Click to access state_of_planet_declaration.pdf
One year ago it was possible to submit proposals for sessions for the conference and I submitted a proposal, “Implications of peak oil for climate change scenarios”. The reason behind my proposal was that, in 2010, we had published an article in the journal Natural Resources Research with the title, “Validity of the fossil fuel production outlooks in the IPCC Emission Scenarios”. The article can be found at our website:
http://www.fysast.uu.se/ges/en/publications/validity-of-the-fossil-fuel-production-outlooks-in-the-ipcc-emission-scenarios.
Publication date: 2010-06-01, First published in: Natural Resources Research, Authors: M. Höök, A. Sivertsson, K. Aleklett,
Abstract: Anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2 emissions is strongly and fundamentally linked to future energy production. The Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) from 2000 contains 40 scenarios for future fossil fuel production and is used by the IPCC to assess future climate change. Previous scenarios were withdrawn after exaggerating one or several trends. This study investigates underlying assumptions on resource availability and future production expectations to determine whether exaggerations can be found in the present set of emission scenarios as well.
It is found that the SRES unnecessarily takes an overoptimistic stance and that future production expectations are leaning towards spectacular increases from present output levels. In summary, we can only encourage the IPCC to involve more resource experts and natural science in future emission scenarios. The current set, SRES, is biased toward exaggerated resource availability and unrealistic expectations on future production outputs from fossil fuels.
On 24 June 2011 I received the following reply from the organizers:
Dear Kjell Aleklett,
Planet under Pressure Session Proposal Feedback
Thank you for submitting your session proposal entitled “Implications of peak oil for climate change scenarios”, reference number 337.
The Scientific Organising Committee (SOC) of Planet under Pressure received nearly 450 session proposals, so it has been a challenge to decide which proposals to include in the conference programme given the high degree of oversubscription and the quality of the submissions. This has caused a considerable delay in announcing the programme, for which we apologise (our volunteer labour was somewhat overwhelmed!). Following the review process, I regret to inform you that, whilst the SOC found the above proposal of interest, it has not been accepted as a session in the conference. As with a number of other appealing contributions, there is unfortunately not the capacity to include all of them as we would have liked.
The information I had hoped to discuss at the conference is described in detail in Chapter 17 of my coming book, “Peeking at Peak Oil”. Chapter 17 is titled, “Peak Oil and Climate Change”. It describes the history of how the IPCC ignored Peak Oil its implications for the IPCC’s emission scenarios. As early as June 2001 Jean Laherrère showed an IPCC workshop in Vienna that the emissions scenarios they were working with for oil were completely unrealistic. Later, we continued this work but the IPCC refused to listen even though they say that they would only pay attention to peer-reviewed articles. For the IPCC to accept that their emissions scenarios are incorrect is the same as admitting that the basis for much of the work on climate change that researchers have been doing for the past 10 years has been wrong.
There is a threat to our climate and we must evaluate that threat but we must do it using correct data. You may be interested to know that Bert Bolin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Bolin) who participated in the founding of the IPCC and was its first chairperson was also present at the first ASPO conference in Uppsala in 2002. When, for the first time, I applied for research funding from the Energy Authority I know that Bert Bolin was one of the people who assessed the application. He told me later that he had recommended that the application be funded and he thought that it was very important that we study Peak Oil. The Energy Authority did grant me funding and so began my research on Peak Oil.
(Swedish)
I torsdags avslutades konferensen ”Planet Under Pressure” i London och man har nu lämnat ett uttalande ”State of the Planet Declaration”: http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/pdf/state_of_planet_declaration.pdf
För ett år sedan kunde man föreslå olika secessioner och jag lämnade in förslaget “Implications of peak oil for climate change scenarios”. Anledningen var att vi 2010 hade publicerat en artikel i Natural Resources Research med titeln ” Validity of the fossil fuel production outlooks in the IPCC Emission Scenarios”. Artikeln går att läsa via vår hemsida, http://www.fysast.uu.se/ges/en/publications/validity-of-the-fossil-fuel-production-outlooks-in-the-ipcc-emission-scenarios.
Publication date: 2010-06-01, First published in: Natural Resources Research, Authors: M. Höök, A. Sivertsson, K. Aleklett,
Abstract: Anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2 emissions is strongly and fundamentally linked to future energy production. The Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) from 2000 contains 40 scenarios for future fossil fuel production and is used by the IPCC to assess future climate change. Previous scenarios were withdrawn after exaggerating one or several trends. This study investigates underlying assumptions on resource availability and future production expectations to determine whether exaggerations can be found in the present set of emission scenarios as well.
It is found that the SRES unnecessarily takes an overoptimistic stance and that future production expectations are leaning towards spectacular increases from present output levels. In summary, we can only encourage the IPCC to involve more resource experts and natural science in future emission scenarios. The current set, SRES, is biased toward exaggerated resource availability and unrealistic expectations on future production outputs from fossil fuels.
Den 24 juni 2011 fick jag följande svar från organisatörerna:
Dear Kjell Aleklett,
Planet under Pressure Session Proposal Feedback
Thank you for submitting your session proposal entitled “Implications of peak oil for climate change scenarios”, reference number 337.
The Scientific Organising Committee (SOC) of Planet under Pressure received nearly 450 session proposals, so it has been a challenge to decide which proposals to include in the conference programme given the high degree of oversubscription and the quality of the submissions. This has caused a considerable delay in announcing the programme, for which we apologise (our volunteer labour was somewhat overwhelmed!). Following the review process, I regret to inform you that, whilst the SOC found the above proposal of interest, it has not been accepted as a session in the conference. As with a number of other appealing contributions, there is unfortunately not the capacity to include all of them as we would have liked.
Det som jag hade hoppats få diskutera på konferensen finns i detalj beskrivet I min kommande bok “Peeking at Peak Oil” i kapitel 17 ”Peak Oil and Climate Change”. Det är historien om hur IPCC ignorerat Peak Oil och vad Peak Oil medför vad det gäller utsläppsscenarierna. Redan i Juni 2001 visade Jean Laherrère på en workshop i Wien att de utsläppsscenarier som IPCC anväder för olja är helt orealistiska. Vi ha sedan fortsatt på det arbete men IPCC lyssnar inte på det örat fastän man säger att man skall bry sig om ”peer reviewed” artiklar. Att acceptera att utsläppsscenarierna är felaktiga är det samma som att erkänna att den bas som klimatforskare använt under 10 år är felaktig.
Det finns hot mot vårt klimat och vi skall utvärdera hoten, men vi skall göra det utifrån rätt data. Det kan vara intressant att veta att Bert Bolin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Bolin), som var med och grundade IPCC och som var dess förste ordförande var med på världens första Peak Oil konferens i Uppsala 2002. Då jag för första gången sökte forskningsmedel från Energimyndigheten vet jag att Bert Bolin var med och granskade ansökan och han sa till mig senare att han rekomenderade att jag skulle få medel då han tyckte det var viktigt att vi studerade Peak Oil. Energimyndigheten beviljade mig forskningsmedel och så började min forskning om Peak Oil.
Aleklett's Energy Mix 
C_W
April 2, 2012
Kjell,
For sometime now I have been following the sad saga of the disconnect between those who have published the carbon dioxide emission scenarios and those who have developed peak oil and peak fossil fuel scenarios (see http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2011/08/peak-oil-and-climate-change-time-for.html; http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2011/08/dissonant-views-of-peak-oil-and-climate.html), and, the implications that substantially ignoring the risks that declining oil production rates will have on food production (see http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html).
It is unfortunate that the climate scientists on the SOC don’t want to hear your evidenced-based presentation showing why their carbon dioxide emission scenarios are unrealistic because they are based on wildly exaggerated assumptions of resource availability or future production outputs of fossil fuels.
I am very curious to hear your thoughts on why you think this continues to be the case?
Is it just a matter of professional or intellectual pride of the lead scientists who cannot accept that their climate change scenarios are wrong because of these faulty base assumptions? I find it hard to believe that ALL of the leading scientists are so locked into this paradigm, and, that one or more of them wouldn’t eventually “break away” from the group and publish a series of alternative scenarios based on more realistic assumptions of future resource availability and production output.
Or, is it because of “political” pressure, on the IPCC and other organizations, to suppress any presentation of data that would under-cut the prevailing view of climate change, such as represented by the “state of planet declaration?” Once again, it is hard for me to believe that such political pressure could be so effective for so long.
Regards,
C_W
MattiasD
April 20, 2012
Hej Kjell, jag ser fram emot din bok! Men angående koldioxidutsläpp och peak oil, hur är läget om man också tar hänsyn till alla andra fossila bränslen som jag tar för givet man kommer använda så länge man har diesel till maskinparken?
aleklett
April 20, 2012
De finns med i boken och faktum är att vi också har Peak Gas och Peak Coal