220
Declining Oil Production
One of the reasons for the disagreement between the major oil powers is the lack of
US support in reducing their oil production. For this reason, Russia and Saudi
Arabia have previously stressed the need to work with all oil producers in the world,
especially the United States, to contain the crisis in the energy market. Meanwhile,
some Texas producers agree to reduce production because their reserves are running
low. Others argue that the United States should impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia
for filling the market with oil. These different groups must be brought together
(www.cnbc.com 2020a, b, c).
Another proposal is to restrict exports, which were banned for 40 years until
2015. According to Katie Bays, cofounder of Sandhill Strategy in Washington,
restricting exports is probably the most effective way to reduce production, along
with licensing producers to use strategic oil reserves. It will be effective in the next
few months (www.spglobal.com 2020a, b, c, d, e). In contrast, US oil industry representatives have warned that any domestic quotas to cut oil production will send a
message to Saudi Arabia and Russia that they have won the price war. This approach
hurts America’s low-cost oil producers. Some analysts predict that the November
2020 US presidential election takes place at a time when US economic growth will
be severely hampered by the Corona crisis and the OPEC Plus oil war (24% drop in
US GDP), shale oil production to the stalemate has risen sharply, the unemployment
rate has risen above 10%, and stock markets will be far from the highest growth rate
they experienced February 2020. Due to health and medical deficiencies and inability to control mortality, the result of his second run for the presidency could be
contrary to the Republicans’ promising predictions of recent months, or at least
make it very difficult for him to be reelected (www.newsbreak.com 2020).
Joe Biden’s $2 trillion plan to remove all greenhouse gas emissions from the US
electricity grid within 15 years has been welcomed by climate campaigners, yet the
dramatic changes have been met with resistance on the part of lobbyists and conservationists. The Democratic presidential nominee has declared a clean energy economy will see millions of new jobs generated. This clean energy economy will
comprise electric vehicles, retrofitted buildings, and renewable power generation,
which will help phase out emissions from fossil fuels. A Biden administration
would seek to roll out tens of thousands of new wind turbines and millions of new
solar panels across the US to significantly enhance the proportion of zero-carbon
energy generated. The US has time and again seen renewable energy infrastructure
“sited and constructed in places that have led to a significant loss of biodiversity,”
said Rebecca Hernandez of the University of California, Davis, who recently coauthored a study on the Mojave imperils cacti and other desert plants (www.newsbreak.com 2020).
While this is a valid concern, it may become necessary to weigh the impacts of
renewable energy development against an alternative where emissions are not cut,
which would show that the US is subject to intolerable heatwaves, increasingly
6 Trump Energy Diplomacy
Declining Oil Production
One of the reasons for the disagreement between the major oil powers is the lack of
US support in reducing their oil production. For this reason, Russia and Saudi
Arabia have previously stressed the need to work with all oil producers in the world,
especially the United States, to contain the crisis in the energy market. Meanwhile,
some Texas producers agree to reduce production because their reserves are running
low. Others argue that the United States should impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia
for filling the market with oil. These different groups must be brought together
(www.cnbc.com 2020a, b, c).
Another proposal is to restrict exports, which were banned for 40 years until
2015. According to Katie Bays, cofounder of Sandhill Strategy in Washington,
restricting exports is probably the most effective way to reduce production, along
with licensing producers to use strategic oil reserves. It will be effective in the next
few months (www.spglobal.com 2020a, b, c, d, e). In contrast, US oil industry representatives have warned that any domestic quotas to cut oil production will send a
message to Saudi Arabia and Russia that they have won the price war. This approach
hurts America’s low-cost oil producers. Some analysts predict that the November
2020 US presidential election takes place at a time when US economic growth will
be severely hampered by the Corona crisis and the OPEC Plus oil war (24% drop in
US GDP), shale oil production to the stalemate has risen sharply, the unemployment
rate has risen above 10%, and stock markets will be far from the highest growth rate
they experienced February 2020. Due to health and medical deficiencies and inability to control mortality, the result of his second run for the presidency could be
contrary to the Republicans’ promising predictions of recent months, or at least
make it very difficult for him to be reelected (www.newsbreak.com 2020).
Joe Biden’s $2 trillion plan to remove all greenhouse gas emissions from the US
electricity grid within 15 years has been welcomed by climate campaigners, yet the
dramatic changes have been met with resistance on the part of lobbyists and conservationists. The Democratic presidential nominee has declared a clean energy economy will see millions of new jobs generated. This clean energy economy will
comprise electric vehicles, retrofitted buildings, and renewable power generation,
which will help phase out emissions from fossil fuels. A Biden administration
would seek to roll out tens of thousands of new wind turbines and millions of new
solar panels across the US to significantly enhance the proportion of zero-carbon
energy generated. The US has time and again seen renewable energy infrastructure
“sited and constructed in places that have led to a significant loss of biodiversity,”
said Rebecca Hernandez of the University of California, Davis, who recently coauthored a study on the Mojave imperils cacti and other desert plants (www.newsbreak.com 2020).
While this is a valid concern, it may become necessary to weigh the impacts of
renewable energy development against an alternative where emissions are not cut,
which would show that the US is subject to intolerable heatwaves, increasingly
6 Trump Energy Diplomacy