Low Oil Prices May Bode Ill for Climate

Oil prices are continuing their sub-$70-per-barrel dive, and as gasoline prices fall with them, they create barriers to decreasing fossil fuel consumption and increasing fuel efficiency.

It also means the U.S. shale oil boom may slow, but not completely go bust.  The shale oil boom itself is part of the reason oil prices have been in a free-fall since summer.  Shale oil, through advances in hydraulic fracturing, is flooding the market with U.S. crude.  Oil prices, which have fallen about 35 percent this year, are also remaining low because the OPEC oil cartel announced in November it won’t cut Middle Eastern production in an attempt to maintain global dominance as the U.S. becomes the world’s leader in pumping crude oil.

“I suspect that if oil prices remain low, the U.S. will see a reversal of its decline in gasoline consumption, which is the lowest level it’s been in 30 years,” Deborah Gordon, director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said.  “This would be a dramatic reversal of fortune for climate progress.”

If gasoline prices stay low, people may begin to reconsider fuel-efficient lifestyle choices and where they live in relation to where they work, said Adam Millard-Ball, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California-Santa Cruz.

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