The idea that the developing world will benefit from cheap oil is ridiculous.

The developing world is the one suffering from the impacts of global warming. Several countries in Africa are suffering from wars worsened by climate change driven migrations. Countries like India have a mix of cities running out of water, cities flooded by water and cities drowning in pollution which is almost certainly gonna erase years of people's lives eliminating any improvements caused by better medicine.

Cheap oil, or expensive oil, are both bad for developing countries. It's literally not possible to give the hundreds of millions of people in developing countries a better future with fossil fuel driven growth.

All our thinking and planning has to start from that basic fact.

The idea that people in the developing world won't benefit from fossil fuels is a horrible lie. All of the claims you made (regarding flooding, wars, etc) are unfalsifiable, two-points-make-a-line gibberish.

Carbon emissions may very well be a valid concern, but that concern is not obviously more valid than people dying of privation, a condition that we know for sure is solved by economic development (which, to date, requires fossil fuels).

The idea of someone typing on some website about how people in the developing world shouldn't burn fossil fuels to lift themselves out of poverty is appalling. "How dare you" -- or something.

Maybe it's appalling but it is true. The developing world cannot become as rich as the developed world or everything collapses. The developed world needs to become poorer.

Time will tell. Either way, I'm fairly tired of interacting with people who seeem to think they have exclusive access to a mainline from the future.

It's tough to think about the negative long-term impact of pollution on health or think about the connection between burning fossil fuels and flooding, etc. when you're starving, feel like you don't have any economic stability and have no idea how to adequately educate your kids because you know the public education system sucks but have no money to put towards private education.

Provide economic stability to enough people in the short-term to reach a critical mass of people that have the privilege to care about the longer-term. Until then, I don't see most areas (e.g. many regions in India) have the bandwidth to trade-off short-term economic gain for long-term health.

To clarify: I agree with your point. I just don't see the current economic climate in many parts of the world allow for shaping local policy that promotes long-term environmental stability.

There is no scientific basis for this statement. IPCC estimates of impact on global GDP are about 5% under a “do nothing” scenario by 2100. Countries like India will likely be better off charging full speed ahead with economic development, even in light of the problems caused by climate change.

> Countries like India will likely be better off charging full speed ahead with economic development, even in light of the problems caused by climate change.

And if they do that, countries like the US can say "what's the point in us doing anything about climate change? India and China will wipe out any carbon emissions reductions we make." Pretty handy, right?

Right, we should sacrifice millions of lives in the developing world because we're unwilling to curb emissions! Until western countries prove that this isn't a massive effort to secure their status why should the developing world literally kill itself?

> Several countries in Africa are suffering from wars worsened by climate change driven migrations.

What countries are these? The conflict areas in Africa I'm familiar with (e.g. Great Lakes region), seem to be driven almost entirely over access to valuable resources.

The developing world are and will benefit from cheap oil. This is a fact. Not a matter for debate or discussion.

> Several countries in Africa are suffering from wars worsened by climate change driven migrations.

Now only if these african countries used more oil to develop and get rich so that they wouldn't have to fight over scraps. Are you seriously saying that a continent where a significant portion of the population lacks reliable electricity won't benefit from cheap oil and development?

> Countries like India have a mix of cities running out of water, cities flooded by water and cities drowning in pollution which is almost certainly gonna erase years of people's lives eliminating any improvements caused by better medicine.

A country with a per capita income of only $2K? Where hundreds of millions of its citizens live in poverty. You are claiming these people won't benefit from cheap oil and development?

The only people who are against cheap oil for africa, india, etc are privileged white liberal parasites who are already rich from a century of cheap oil. It's pretty pathetic to try and deny these people are chance at a better life because you want to help bankers enact a carbon tax on the world.

Fossil fuels have already spent the last 150 years lifting out hundreds of millions of people in what were then developing countries. I hope it continues.

>Several countries in Africa are suffering from wars worsened by climate change driven migrations.

Why would migration lead to war? (I'll be honest: this is a rhetorical question.)

So cheap oil and expensive are both bad, but "just right" oil is fine?

I'd love for some of these people to go to these countries and tell these people to do without electricity and fuel for their transportation and generators.

If we assume the developed world will eventually care to do something about the climate heating in the medium or long term, this is terrible for the developing world.

Build out the infrastructure for oil, the refuelling, without need of a power grid for EVs first. Then find in 2040 or 2050 that the developed world imposes trade sanctions or other pressure for not being carbon neutral. Build an infrastructure for at best twenty years then throw it away.

That's suggesting to build out with the horse and buggy in 1910.

If, on the other hand, the developed world doesn't get their act together, sure it's great news for the developing world in the short term. While the whole planet accelerates over the cliff edge. We can ultimately trim the population more than we did in the Black Death.

Right, the predicted cliff edge we've been hypothesizing is imminent for decades vs. the near-immediate loss of life caused by rejection of fossil fuels

The developing nations never pass cheaper oil benefit to the end consumers. They just increase taxes to offset the decrease in price (and thats a good thing). So there won't be any increase in consumption due to low prices.

This is also exactly correct. The actual reason is that fossil fuels are highly subsidized in most developing countries, so the only impact this has is in reducing the subsidies paid by the government exchequer.

Not sure I understand how they can be both highly subsidized and yet highly taxed at the same time.

Some sections of society might be subsidized (poor, inputs to fertilizer industry etc) but overall the price of gas is quite high (India: $4.18 per gallon, Brazil: $4.30). Its almost at same level as California and without any activism.

During the oil highs of 2011-2012, prices reached as high as $5.5 per gallon.

extraction companies are taxed or owned outright, end products are subsidized.

Sounds like it will just net out.

Only if you tend to use as much as you produce. If you're a net exporter, it pays for a lot.

Developing countries generally can't afford to subsidize fossil fuels. The only developing countries where fossil fuels are highly subsidized are the few countries with substantial domestic oil production e.g. Iran and Venezuela, not most of them.

Ok, so maybe developing nations will get a boost to government revenues. That's a trickier variable to base predictions on, depending on the level of competence or corruption in any given government.

> The growth will slow down and stop in decade or two.

I heard exact same statement a decade or two ago.

Are you suggesting that growth is infinite?

Not quite - but what makes us so successful aren't the resources themselves but our (nearly) endless ability to be creative, to learn, to understand, to come up with new ways to make use of those finite resource. In a sense, the effective supply of oil has increased thanks to our increase in the supply of knowledge. I expect that to continue for many lifetimes to come.

Then the solution will have be different than stopping to use oil but mitigate its negative effects.

Cheap oil hasn't helped Nigeria at all.