Peak Oil

When you pump oil, the easy stuff comes out first, after that it gets more like tar. Most fields outside the Middle East are already past their peak. Oil discoveries peaked in the 60s and we've now used about half the worlds oil. World oil production will soon start to decline.

Up until now, higher prices have always been met by more oil pumped. This wont be able to happen for much longer, so prices will continue to rise until people find ways to use less oil. Until then there will be shortages, much higher prices and growing international tension over remaining oil stocks. We are not facing the “end of oil”; it will be around for at least another 50 years. However, we are facing the end of cheap and abundant oil, on which our society has been built.

Solutions to peak oil are also part of the solution to climate change .

Read our energy policy

Latest News

Greens win support for sustainable biofuels on Green Day

01 Jul 2009

The Green Party is optimistic about the future of biofuels now that the Government has signalled support for the Green’s Sustainable Biofuel Bill being introduced tonight. "Without sustainability standards, National’s biodiesel subsidy has the same problem that Labour’s biofuel sales obligation initially had - no protection for the world’s hungry or for the environment,” Jeanette said.

Budget Policy Statement Speech by Dr Russel Norman MP

25 Mar 2009

What the Government’s Budget Policy Statement (BPS) lacks is a vision and a plan for how New Zealand can address the two crises facing our country and our planet – the economic crisis and the sustainability crisis.

If we are to respond to these twin crises we need to understand them.

The economic crisis is the result of the conflation of, on the one hand, the global financial crisis due to lack of regulation of the financial sector, and on the other hand, spiking commodity prices – especially oil – due to the limits of growth on a finite planet.

Shock funding cut to coastal shipping

25 Mar 2009

The Government plans to cut almost all funding for coastal shipping from 2009, the Green Party has discovered. “Instead of helping Kiwi ships operate staffed with Kiwi seafarers, National are leaving them high and dry, without a plan to grow their share of the freight industry or the required investment to achieve it,” Sue Bradford said today.

Government opts for oil dependence, gridlock, and growing carbon emissions

16 Mar 2009

Government’s newly announced plan to accelerate the building of new state highways while reducing the money spent on alternatives reveals a complete denial of the actual transport challenges faced by this country.

Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill - Third Reading

18 Dec 2008

I have to begin with that last point from Dr Nick Smith. As he well knows, New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions rose fast under the National Government of the 1990s and they rose faster under the Labour Government of the 2000s, for one simple reason—that is, the economy grew faster under Labour than it did under National.