『Abstract
Future scenarios with significant anthropogenic climate change
also display large increases in world production of fossil fuels,
the principal CO2 emission source. Meanwhile,
fossil fuel depletion has also been identified as a future challenge.
This chapter reviews the connection between these two issues and
concludes that limits to availability of fossil fuels will set
a limit for mankind's ability to affect the climate. However,
this limit is unclear as various studies have reached quite different
conclusions regarding future atmospheric CO2 concentrations caused
by fossil fuel limitations.
It is concluded that the current set of emission scenarios used
by the IPCC and others is perforated by optimistic expectations
on future fossil fuel production that are improbable or even unrealistic.
The current situation, where climate models largely rely on emission
scenarios detached from the reality of supply and its inherent
problems are problematic. In fact, it may even mislead planners
and politicians into making decisions that mitigate one problem
but make the other one worse. It is important to understand that
the fossil energy problem and the anthropogenic climate change
problem are tightly connected and need to be treated as two interwoven
challenges necessitating a holistic solution.
Keywords: Fossil fuel depletion; Emission scenarios; Anthropogenic
climate change』
1. Introduction
1.1. Historical background to anthropogenic climate change
1.2. The special report on emission scenarios
1.3. Scenario probabilities in SRES
2. Fossil fuels in the global energy system
2.1. Importance of future energy systems for emissions
3. Fossil fuel projections in SRES
3.1. A background to hydrocarbon depletion
3.2. Fossil fuel production outlooks in SRES
3.3. Critical concerns over the SRES production scenarios
3.3.1. Oil and gas production details in SRES
3.3.2. Coal production details in SRES
4. The complexity of energy substitutions
4.1. A question of development pace
4.2. Economic consequences of hydrocarbon depletion
4.3. Energy-return on investment
4.4. Sociopolitical consequences
4.5. Summarizing remarks
5. Climate impact assessments from fossil fuel constraints
6. Concluding discussions
Acknowledgments
References