| 1. A withdrawal from Iraq Well, this is a doozy isn't it? If the US, UK and Australia maintain the occupation, it risks fuelling the insurgency, which could grow to become a civil war. If we leave, we also risk starting a civil war. This morning I read that the White House has decided not to add to the US$18.4bn in reconstruction funds allocated since the invasion in 2003. As a lot of this money has been diverted into the military effort against the insurgency, it's clear the Iraqis will not be getting reliable electricity and water any time soon. According to the article, "the average Iraqi household has electricity for only half the day at best - and in Baghdad there is electricity for no more than six hours a day". | | 
Iraq: damned fi you do, damned if you don't.
| | With Iraq oil production down to half what it was before the invasion, there's little chance Iraq's main export will help get the country rebuilt. Additionally, the new Iraq government, under pressure from the IMF, recently increased gas prices to Iraqis substantially. According to an article at voanews.com "Oil Minister Bahr al-Aloum quit over those price hikes, because they made gasoline too expensive for poor Iraqi families. He said the government originally planned to double or triple the prices, but the International Monetary Fund pushed for a five-fold increase as part of its debt forgiveness plan". Can this ridiculous situation continue? Our soldiers would rather be at home and the Iraqis would rather not have our soldiers there. Calls from the provisional Iraqi government for coalition troops to stay are clearly politically and economically motivated. Meanwhile, as an article in the New Standard News points out, "Western firms are showering the Iraqi Ministry of Oil with gifts ranging from expensive software packages and training, to international trips and to cash". In an oil contract rush ironically reminiscent of the UN oil-for-food program, western oil companies are busy bribing Iraq oil officials for favours. US companies are concerned about the bribery, "[b]ut the official admitted that American corporations are trying their best regardless, with Shell, Exxon and Chevron each offering material incentives to earn favor from Iraqi officials." Odds on an Iraq withdrawal in 2006? -- Very low 2. Some political action on Global Warming |
| The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported what we all knew instinctively. 2005 was the hottest year on record. New Year's Day reached a blistering 45.1 degrees (measured at Sydney Airport), indicating another scorching year to come. And, while the federal government rushed to defend its action on climate change and global warming, it remains uncommitted to the Kyoto Accord, along with the US. Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell recognises that climate change is the biggest modern-day environmental challenge ... so he says. | | 
A home fire in Sydney during recent scorching temperatures
| | But the government's answer is a "regional partnership designed to address global warming with better technology", but no mandatory cuts in emissions. "The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which includes the US, Japan, China, India and South Korea, is due to meet for the first time in Sydney later this month. It has been roundly criticised by environmentalists as a smokescreen to cover up a lack of real action." And indeed it is. One would think that the most destructive hurricanes in history in the Gulf of Mexico and the continuing fall in water levels in Australia's dams would wake these guys up. Uh huh. Not a chance. Any talk of international mandatory greenhouse emission controls has been scuppered by the US until at least 2012, when the world has agreed to meet and "chat" about it again. A recent Washington Post Editorial discussing the Montreal climate change conference hit it right on the head: "U.S. representatives in Montreal have stated quite clearly that they want no part of any such formal negotiations and may try to prevent them from happening at all. Instead, the administration is promoting voluntary emissions reduction and technology investments, nice ideas that only a handful of businesses have bothered to adopt." Odds on any significant Global Warming mitigation action in 2006? Very low. |
| 3. Fuel efficient transportation The peaking of world conventional oil production will occur within the next decade or two. This will force the world into unknown territory, as it is forced to rely more and more on unconventional oil reserves, with their far higher costs and environmental consequences. Canadian Tar Sands is a good example: "About two tonnes of oil sands must be dug up, moved and processed to produce one barrel of oil". Compared to conventional oil, where you stick a drill in the ground and get a gusher, this type of oil production is slow, hard to scale up, expensive and environmentally destructive. The upshot of this is that we will be forced to rebuild an enormous transport infrastructure that is now entirely dependent upon liquid gasoline fuels, with an alternative that does not currently exist! It may be that some genius will invent something cost-competitive soon, but no-one knows when that may be... The first step, if we are to cope with a decline in oil supplies and the resultant rising prices, is to cut oil consumption. As we don't know the date when the peak will occur, but that it may do so within 20 years, we have to alter our cars and trucks now.
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Tar Sands production. It's really "mining for oil".
| | Using light weight materials and diesel or hybrid technology where appropriate, we could double the efficiency of the road fleet. But it's important that enough fuel efficient cars are on the road to make any difference. In both the US and Australia, larger vehicle sales have fallen slightly due to the recent high gas prices. This is sending warning signals to the car manufacturers, so we can expect some movement in this area as long as oil prices remain high. Japanese car manufacturers are already heading in this direction, and the US manufacturers will have to work hard to catch up. Odds on improved fuel efficiency in 2006? Good.
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| 4. World peace Well OK, that might be asking for a bit too much... Anyway, to all the NetNacs! readers a Happy New Year, from the land down under! See you all in the next issue! Ian McPherson
DownUnder Editor | | 
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