IEA report reminds us peak oil idea has gone up in flames | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk

IEA report reminds us peak oil idea has gone up in flames | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Given the bubbling cauldron of violence that the middle East so frequently and regrettably is, the prospect of the US outstripping Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer in the next decade is deeply striking. The redrawing of the geopolitical map may cool some tensions and perhaps spark others.
But the truly global implications of the International Energy Agency's flagship report for 2012 lie elsewhere, in the quietly devastating statement that no more than one-third of already proven reserves of fossil fuels can be burned by 2050 if the world is to prevent global warming exceeding the danger point of 2C.