written 10 Apr 2022
published 17 Apr 2022
Oil consumption is driving the climate crisis, and the peaking of global oil production, due to overconsuming a finite resource, contributes to high fuel prices. Today I want to discuss how purchasing oil funds tyrants and terrorism around the world.
In 2019, before the pandemic sharply reduced demand, global oil production was 95M barrels per day. Few countries have oil production in sufficient quantity to allow for much export. Just four countries account for 46 percent of global exports: United Arab Emirates (16.3 percent), Saudi Arabia (11.4 percent), Russia (10.5 percent), and Kuwait (7.6 percent).
#1, United Arab Emirates, "is a federation of seven hereditary tribal monarchs. All responsibilities not granted to the national government are reserved to the individual emirates. Human rights in the country are generally substandard. Citizens criticizing the regime are imprisoned and tortured, their families harassed by the state security apparatus, with cases of forced disappearances. Sharia religious courts have exclusive jurisdiction over a wide range of laws; amputation and stoning are considered legal punishments, with homosexuality and apostasy from Islam,punishable by death."
"In 2013, the country had a population of 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million were Emirati citizens and 7.8 million were expatriates (guest workers). The UAE, with the seventh largest oil reserves, has developed to one of the world's most wealthy states, but the wealth gap between rich and poor is one of the worst in the world, largely due to the amount of welfare and protection afforded to native Emiratis and the amount of neglect towards migrant workers."
#2, Saudi Arabia, "is an absolute monarchy. No political parties or national elections are permitted, and observance of Sharia law are mandated for Muslim and non-Muslim alike. The Economist rated the Saudi government as the fifth most authoritarian government in the world."
"A founding member of OPEC, Saudi Arabia controls the world's second-largest oil reserves, spending 8 percent of its GDP on the military, second highest in the world, receiving half of all the US arms exports to the Middle East. There have been continual calls for halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia, due to alleged war crimes in the Yemeni Civil War, alleged sponsorship of Sunni Islamic terrorism, and its poor human rights record, characterized by the excessive and extrajudicial use of capital punishment, and failure to adopt adequate measures against human trafficking."
"In 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident, columnist for The Washington Post, was ambushed, suffocated, and dismembered by a 15-member squad of Saudi assassins at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey."
#3, Russia, has been fighting in Ukraine for over 8 years, starting with the annexation of Crimea in the south and seizures of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east. This February, the conflict expanded to the entire country, drawing the attention of the entire world. The expected swift takeover failed, partially due to the stiff resistance of the Ukrainians, and partly due to the pathetic condition of the Russian military after 22 years of corruption under Putin's authoritarian rule. The recent retreat from the area north of Kyiv has revealed evidence of extensive war crimes. Russian oil and natural gas, the world's eighth largest reserves, account for 2/3 of their export income. Europe gets 2/5 of its gas and 1/4 of its oil from Russia, a dependency Putin expected would give him a free hand in his invasion.
#4, Kuwait, "is an emirate, where the ruling family dominates the country's political system, and the state religion is Sunni Islam. Kuwait is a developed country backed by the world's sixth largest oil reserves, and the Kuwaiti dinar is the highest valued currency in the world, yet Kuwait has the largest number of stateless people in the entire region. Since 1991, accusations from a wide variety of sources describe Kuwait as the world's biggest source of terrorism funding, particularly for ISIS and Al-Qaeda."
In all four of these countries, the control of oil is concentrated into the hands of very few people, encouraging and supporting massive tyranny, corruption, and misery within their population. We support this as long as we consume their products. To avert further misery, to avoid ruinous price swings, and to preserve the hope of a habitable planet in the future, we must eliminate the use of fossil fuels as rapidly as possible.
All quotes are from Wikipedia.
