Australia: Wither peak oil at Rudd’s 2020 Summit?

One early action that has captured the public’s imagination is Rudd’s call for a two-day summit in April of 1000 leading Australians to, “… bring together some of the best and brightest brains from across the country to tackle the long term challenges confronting Australia’s future – challenges which require long-term responses from the nation beyond the usual three year electoral cycle.”

For a person (such as yours truly) concerned with the imminent decline of world oil production (“peak oil”) and the inability of Australia’s political leadership to openly discuss this issue, Rudd’s 2020 Summit seemed like a wonderful opportunity. Peak oil impinges on any topic that could possibly be discussed at the summit. Since cheap and abundant energy (mainly from oil) is what allows our globalised economy to tick along, an imminent decline of oil threatens every aspect of Australia’s existence – from provision of health care to the availability of computers and our ability to adapt to climate change.
Of course, Australia’s current pattern of settlement is impossible to maintain without cheap oil – it is essential for providing barely affordable food to remote aboriginal communities and for the operation of our car-dependent outer suburbs where young families on lower incomes try to afford record-high mortgages while trying to avoid “travel poverty”.

When my university’s Vice-Chancellor offered to pay airfare and accommodation costs for any employees accepted as delegates to the Summit I seriously considered applying and so I looked more closely at the Summit details. I was disappointed (but not surprised) to see that, despite the Summit’s declared intention, “To provide a forum for free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined right or wrong answers” the framing of the topics was such that the assumptions of economic and population growth were not to be challenged.

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