ETH News

Im September 2015 soll die Weltgemeinschaft einen neuen Orientierungsrahmen für die nachhaltige Entwicklung Post-2015 verabschieden. Nach Auffassung des Schweizer Bundesrates soll der globale Referenzrahmen auch die «planetaren Grenzen» als zentralen Punkt berücksichtigen.

In previous articles in this series, I have argued that oil consumption in Western Europe will decline sharply in the coming years due to resource constraints. In this part, let us discuss how Cuba, a country confronted with an oil supply disruption 20 years ago, lives with limited oil supplies and the resulting restrictions on the mobility of people and products.

In parts 1 and 2 we concluded that the future oil consumption in Western Europe will be determined by the declining export capacity of Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan and will likely decline by 5% per year until 2018. Here, we extrapolate the maximum possible oil imports and consumption trends of Western Europe up to the year 2030.

The future oil supply constraints for the Western European OECD countries are rarely discussed in public. While my last entry presented the “known facts” about the topic, this blog post deals with the “known unknown” and the “unknown unknown” boundary conditions for the near future oil consumption in Western Europe.

Despite the disturbing import dependence on oil and the unpredicted increase of the oil price during the last 10 years, the future oil supply constraints for the Western European OECD countries are rarely discussed in public. The following two blog posts present the “known”, “known unknown” and the “unknown unknown” boundary conditions for the near future oil consumption in Western Europe.

Ewiges Wachstum auf einem begrenzten Planeten ist unmöglich. Anstatt diese einfache aber unliebsame Tatsache zu akzeptieren und danach zu handeln, haben wir uns mit dem faulen Kompromiss einer nicht quantifizierbaren «nachhaltigen Entwicklung» arrangiert.