50 MPs warn government that global oil production may be peaking

London, 23rd May 2008 - A cross-party group of MPs including former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell have signed a Commons motion urging the government to review its estimates as to when global oil production will peak and begin to decline. 

As crude oil hit another record high of $135 a barrel on Wednesday, and as UK motorists notice the impact of sustained high prices at the petrol pumps, MPs are beginning to mobilise around the idea that current high oil prices may just be the beginning of a permanent trend.  Experts at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) have warned of an overall liquid fuel peak likely between 2010-2012, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) have predicted an oil 'supply crunch' in 2012.

John Hemming MP, who tabled the Early Day Motion (1453) said that 'the government is failing to address the reality that we are reaching the limits to growth in global oil production.  The implications for the way we run our society and economy are profound, but the government refuses even to initiate a contingency study.  Rather than making futile appeals to OPEC to raise production, Gordon Brown must recognise that we cannot carry on with the same old assumptions of endless growth in world oil production'.

Hemming chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil (APPGOPO) which was founded in July 2007 to review estimates of future oil production and consider the consequences of declining world oil production for the UK and world economy.

Link to the EDM here: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=35715&SESSION=891