There's still lots of oil - at a price

The International Energy Agency is warning that the world's consumption of crude will soar over the next quarter decade, leaving Western economies increasingly dependent on oil from an unstable Middle East - and swimming in a soup of greenhouse gases. Within that gloomy outlook, there is a bright spot. The IEA says there is ample oil to quench the growing thirst for oil for decades, dismissing the view of peak-oil advocates who contend the world is on the brink of a catastrophic drop in crude production. Nicola Pochettino, senior energy analyst at the IEA, said the agency does not believe that physical supplies of oil will peak in the next quarter century, but that there is a question as to whether the world's energy producers will invest enough. The agency says the world will need to spend US$17-trillion by 2030 on a broad range of energy needs, including conventional oil and gas, an estimate that has risen $1T from last year.

In its World Energy Outlook issued yesterday, the IEA outlines a future of rampant energy growth, where demand soars by more than 50%, and the world is using the equivalent of 16.3 billion tonnes of oil. The vast majority of those new demands would be met by increased consumption of fossil fuels — and much of that would come from North Africa and the Middle East. Production from Canada's oil sands and other similar non-conventional sources would quintuple, but conventional crude from the Persian Gulf would still dominate. Under that scenario, oil prices would ease slightly by the end of the decade, but rise by 2030, to more than $40 a barrel in constant 2004 dollars, or above $70 a barrel in nominal terms, which does not strip out the effect of inflation. But the IEA said its central concerns are less about petro-economics than the political and environmental consequences. Such a rise in oil consumption would inflate the importance of production from North Africa and the Middle East - largely overlapping the membership of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That area would account for 44% of world supply, up from 35% last year. At the same time, emissions of greenhouse gases would soar, “calling into question the long-term sustainability of the global energy system,” the IEA warned.
(Globe and Mail 051108)

So, let me get this straight. From this article I get the feeling that the IEA feels everything's a-ok because there is lots of oil, however the consideration (from the article, apparently inevitability) of global warming and climate change is a minor consequence; an afterthought, if you will. I don't get how the 'authorities' can look at climate change with such nonchalance. It hardly matters how much oil there is and how extensively the ecomony is growing if everyone is getting sick and/or dying, or being displaced because of toxins in the environment, polluted air, unpotable water, rising sea levels, massive ecological shifts, and violent weather? I think oil is going to be only one of many 'essential' resources that wars will be fought over in the not-too-distant future.