Anticipated economic costs and benefits of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the State of Qatar

Abstract

Further ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by non-Annex 1 countries such as the State of Qatar will not affect the entrance into force of the Treaty; however, ratification remains an important decision due to other considerations, primarily the economic costs and benefits associated with ratification. As a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Qatar's economic position is closely allied with revenue generated from its oil and natural gas resources. Qatar expects adverse impacts from implementing the Kyoto Protocol, though the estimated magnitude varies enormously with different models. Also, the impacts depend significantly on how the implementation is done; for example, the kind of policies that other countries use. Qatar is able to counter adverse impacts by exploiting its greater share of natural gas and developing energy-intensive industries that produce nonenergy goods such as steel, petrochemicals, and chemicals. Furthermore, it is clear that clauses in the Protocol can be developed to protect OPEC interests, and if Qatar does not ratify the Protocol, it will be excluded from the subsequent rule-making processes. On balance, there are benefits to ratifying the Treaty, and there is also a strong need for extensive further research.     

欧佩克石油生产配额制度与油价关系研究

欧佩克(OPEC)是一个国际石油供应组织, 其石油政策的重点是通过实施生产配额制度, 对国际市场的油价进行控制, 以实现其石油收益的最大化。本文依据丰富翔实的历史及现状数据资料, 对欧佩克生产配额制度进行了深入研究后得出三点结论: 首先, 生产配额、产量与油价关系紧密, 欧佩克实施配额制度是其实施卡特尔控制的手段之一, 配额制度在欧佩克发展历史上发挥了重要作用, 尽管当前生产配额制度对油价的控制作用在一定程度上弱化, 但也正在发挥作用, 与此同时也存在一定的问题。其次, 欧佩克生产配额制度对油价的影响具阶段性特征, 本文分别对欧佩克在启动期、活跃期、挫折期、成熟期和彷徨期5个阶段中石油生产配额、产量与油价的关系进行了对比分析与研究, 得出了不同时期欧佩克生产配额、产量与油价的关系, 形成了若干重要认识。第三, 分析预测了未来欧佩克生产配额与油价的关系, 探讨了生产配额制度对世界市场油价走向的影响。     

Less is more: Spectres of scarcity and the politics of resource access in the upstream oil sector

Our objective in this paper is to understand the significance of the peak oil claim for the large, publicly-traded oil companies to whom the tasks of finding oil, extracting it and delivering it to market have been allocated. On the face of it, peak oil would appear to offer the ultimate solution to a problem that has plagued the international oil industry for the last one hundred years: how to organise scarcity in the face of prodigious abundance. We examine how publicly-traded oil firms (‘Big Oil’) are engaging with the discourse and science of peak oil, and find that peak oil positions firms like Exxon, BP and Shell in a number of different and quite complex ways: as a beneficiary (of a higher price regime), but also as a victim (of shrinking reserves) and a suspect (for under-investing in exploration or exploiting reserves too rapidly). We find a surprising lack of consensus among Big Oil about the significance of peak oil’s core claim for an imminent, permanent decline in the production of conventional grades of crude, and we conclude that peak oil is not regarded as strategic priority for oil producers (the contrast here with climate change is instructive). To understand why this is the case we turn from the physical science-based account of peak oil to political economy, and examine the contradictory character of Big Oil’s current position. We show how the strong financial returns to Big Oil in the last few years mask a precarious structural position when it comes to reserves access and reserves replacement. Critically the origins of this squeeze originate primarily above-ground: in the ownership of reserves, the politics of resource access and the changing structure of the international oil industry, and not below-ground in geological limits. Accordingly, we reject the simple assumption that increasing geological scarcity explains/justifies high returns, and argue that the relative marginalisation of peak oil within Big Oil’s strategic concerns reflects the way it misdiagnoses the cause of oil companies’ woes when it comes to finding and replacing reserves. We conclude that peak oil’s claim of physically-induced scarcity obfuscates rather than illuminates when it comes to understanding the opportunities for - and constraints on - accumulation in the upstream oil sector.     

Post-2012 CDM multi-criteria analysis of industries in six Asian countries: Iranian case study

The prospects of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and for carbon income, up to and beyond 2012, in the industrial sectors of Iran and five other Asian countries are investigated. The attractiveness and suitability of each host country, the status of their industrial sectors (based on four post-2012 scenarios), and the post-2012 potential of the CDM (or similar carbon projects) in these sectors are all examined. A multi-criteria analysis of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, China, and India, based on seven sets of criteria (institutional, regulatory, economic, political, social, CDM experience, and energy production/consumption), is conducted, and the post-2012 potential carbon incomes of each country – based on CO₂e emissions of industrial processes – are calculated. Finally, the Iranian industrial sector and the impact of deregulation of energy prices are examined. The post-2012 potential savings in the Iranian industrial sector are calculated based on energy savings, carbon income, and environmental savings. The results indicate that there is strong demand for investment and new technology in this sector to combat several-fold energy price increases. Moreover, high-priced carbon credits could play a meaningful role in post-2012 energy policies in this sector.

Policy relevance

This research is the first study to quantify the carbon market potentials in the industrial sectors of the selected Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members. The Kyoto Protocol is considered by most OPEC countries to be a mixed bag of threats and opportunities and they have shown ambivalence towards it, mainly due to the threat a reduction of fossil fuel consumption poses to their economies. On the other hand, energy efficiency is a desirable goal for their industrial sectors. Iran, as an OPEC member country with vast energy resources, has mostly ignored the CDM during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and has performed poorly on CDM implementation. However, the current deregulation of energy prices in Iran, with profound cuts in energy subsidies, would definitely alter the perspective of its industrial decision makers on the post-2012 carbon potentials.