Supplies are dwindling and governments need to act now to introduce low-carbon transport, says Sir David King

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Britain's former chief scientist has attacked politicians and industry experts who have their "heads in the sand" over dwindling oil supplies.

Sir David King said governments, including the UK's, were too eager to believe the optimistic predictions of economists who tell them that "oil will be squeezed out of the ground pretty much forever".

King, the government's chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, is now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford.

He said: "That's what governments want to hear and that's what they do hear, and I think the British government as much as many others."

He added that those with a "vested interest" repeatedly overstated how much accessible oil remains in the ground. Conventional oil reserves are about 30% lower than widely reported, he said.

Established oil sources were becoming harder to exploit, he said, leading to wider use of unconventional sources such as deepwater drilling, with environmental impacts including those seen with the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

He said oil demand would overtake production capacity as soon as 2015, which would drive up the price further.

King was speaking to journalists ahead of a conference on low-carbon transport. He said the transport sector contributed a "very significant proportion" of carbon emissions and relied heavily on fossil fuels, such as kerosene, to keep planes flying.

While transport is seen as the most difficult sector to decarbonise, action needs to be taken immediately to keep people and goods moving while reducing reliance on fossil fuels, he said.

"I can't overemphasise the importance of persuading governments to focus attention on what's going to be a very significant issue as we move into the next decade.

"It is down to government to steer us towards a defossilised economy using the regulatory and financial incentives available.

"The technologies do already exist to deliver low-carbon transport, but we need to incentivise the private sector to deliver these solutions to the marketplace."

Oliver Inderwildi, lead author on a report on low carbon transport published by the Smith School, said: "Eventually the era of cheap oil will be over and alternative fuels, the electrification of road transportation, fuel cells and the hydrogen economy will all play their role in providing low carbon mobility."