The Hill: “Would Limiting US Fossil Fuel Production Actually Help Climate Change?”
A story about the relationship between fossil fuel demand and supply quotes RFF Fellow Brian Prest.
“Brian Prest, an economist and fellow at climate think tank Resources for the Future, argued that generally, limiting fossil fuel production puts a higher price on those fuels, and therefore reduces demand — and emissions.
‘Higher prices make, for example, electric vehicles more attractive,’ Prest said. ‘You see substitution away from say, fuel oil for heating to other heating sources, whether it’s heat pumps or gas.’
Prest, with Resources for the Future, said that a combination of reducing fossil fuel production and consumption is the best strategy to fight climate change.
‘If you do both at the same time — you reduce the supply of barrel and you reduce the demand of a barrel — you’re having no net effect on net demand in the market there’s no net impact on the price of oil and so there’s no net leakage effect of those two policies implemented in tandem,’ he said.”
