More Nonsense At the UN Climate Conference

On today’s show we are looking at what I consider to be one of the most ridiculous market forecasts from what should be a respectable institution.

The IEA which is based in Paris issued an updated demand model in the run up to the UN’s annual climate change talks, this year scheduled to take place in Brazil. 

I believe it is important to understand energy markets, even as a real estate investor. It’s important because energy is the economy. You cannot have a unit of economic output without a corresponding unit of energy being consumed somewhere in the world. These two have been inextricably intertwined throughout history. 

The problem with the IEA line of thinking is that it looks at oil and gas  consumption without considering oil and gas supply. Supply and demand cannot be unbalanced for more than a few months. The oil industry only holds about 40 days of supply in inventory worldwide. So if supply and demand fall out of balance, prices will swing considerably which will ultimately affect demand. In the short term demand is relatively inelastic with price. You’re not about to drive 3/4 of the way to work if the price of gas goes up by 1/3. But over time, capital decisions are made based on the economic model associated with each energy source. 

The US hit peak oil supply this year. That means the cost and effort to extract a barrel of oil from the ground is going to go up from here. The IEA report puts the global daily consumption of oil at around 100M barrels per day. 

Under the “Current Policies Scenario,” which is based on existing policy and regulations, global demand rises to 105 million barrels a day in 2035 and 113 million barrels a day in 2050, from 100 million barrels a day last year, mainly driven by petrochemical feedstocks and aviation.

There are a few problems with this analysis. The first is that global oil consumption is already 104.6M barrels per day now in 2025 and the IEA is saying that it’s going to take another decade to reach that demand.

The biggest problem is that their model puts too much emphasis on government policy as the primary driving force affecting oil demand. There is oil on paper and then there is oil in the tank. These are not the same. Just because someone in Washington or Paris or London issues a policy statement about oil consumption you have to remember that the decision to consume oil consists of billions of micro decisions.

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