Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Comparing greenhouse gas emissions from global oils that vary widely due to their composition and management.
California has the opportunity to lead the globe in oil data transparency even as it faces hidden climate risks from its oils.
The days of simply sticking a pipe in the ground and tapping a pool of easy-to-handle and profitable crude oil are fading. Changing resources require people challenge conventional thinking on oil.
By simply knowing more about its oil, California has an opportunity to further transform a critical sector that must rapidly respond to the realities of a warming world.
California faces hidden climate risks from its oils.
Given the state’s future oil prospects along with large volumes currently being produced, refined, and sold, it is incumbent that elected officials and the public better understand California’s oils.
Reducing emissions through innovation is technically feasible, and despite a regulatory focus on other fossil fuels, oil will increasingly offer ways to mitigate climate change.
Focusing mainly on petroleum products has handicapped efforts to help the oil industry make choices consonant with a low-carbon world.
California has for too long turned a blind eye to squarely managing its own oil, choosing instead to target other states’ and countries’ fossil fuels.
Despite its massive capital, scope, and durability, the oil sector remains extremely opaque. Open source data are needed to quantify the oil sector’s climate responsibilities.
The American public does not know enough about changing oil resources in order to make reasoned decisions. Oil data transparency is needed for economic, safety, security, and climate reasons.
