However the pandemic unfolds, it’s time for oil use to peak—and society to prepare for the fallout

ABSTRACT

The decline of oil’s dominance will start with a peak in demand. Reaching that peak quickly is an essential goal, even if things will likely spin out of control from there. If humanity is to avoid staggering harm from climate change, carbon emissions must fall sharply very soon, which implies that humanity’s use of fossil fuels must start to decline soon. As people grasp this imperative, they’ll work to seize this moment when the oil industry has stumbled. The coronavirus pandemic presents activists with several openings to keep oil demand from ever returning to its pre-pandemic peak.

KEYWORDS:

• Fossil fuel demand
• fossil fuel supply
• coronavirus
• climate change
• coal
• tipping point
• petro states
• fossil fuel subsidies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

No funding of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

No funding of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

No funding of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

No funding of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Yonatan Strauch

Yonatan Strauch is a doctoral candidate in Social and Ecological Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. His research examines the intersection of technological change and climate politics in the energy transition, focusing on understanding exponential changes and paradigmatic shifts in energy systems and on how to leverage these changes to address the climate crisis.

Angela Carter

Angela Carter is an associate professor in political science at the University of Waterloo, where she has researched environmental policies and politics in Canada’s major oil producing provinces. She is now extending this work in an international comparative project focused on the rise of national legislation to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Thomas Homer-Dixon holds a University Research Chair at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and is Director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia. His research focuses on threats to global security in the 21st century, including economic instability, climate change, and energy scarcity.