For some major fossil fuel producers producing more may actually be good for the environment. More particularly this is the case for countries that produce natural gas.

Greater use of natural gas is a relatively easy way to reduce CO2 emissions for many countries. The USA and China in particular get a lot of their electricity needs from Coal fired power stations, it would be more environmentally friendly to use either oil or gas than coal. Electricity generated from gas is just 40% as CO2 intensive as electricity generated from coal. Taking the USA as an example half of electricity is created by Coal and 20% by natural gas. However because demand fluctuates it would be possible to use natural gas much more than the USA does at the moment without building more power stations. At the moment coal provides the base electricity production while gas picks up on extra demand meaning that it is not used nearly as much as it could be if used to meet base demand, so simply switching gas to meeting base demand would result in a large reduction in CO2 emissions.^[1]

1. ^ http://www.grist.org/article/natural-gas-as-a-near-term-co2-mitigation-strategy/

There is nothing that can replace oil in its entirely for OPEC members. Oil has provided a one off bounty that will never come again once it has been used or when those states voluntarily agree to reduce their output. It has created rentier economies that makes it very difficult for these countries to develop.

Rentier economies rely upon systems of patronage relying upon kinship groups, merchant communities and patron-client relationships, economic considerations become subservient to political considerations.^[1] This occurred because of the small size of Middle Eastern private sectors forced the creation of state centred development programs.^[2] Unfortunately for these states perpetuating the resources that give their regime its legitimacy, as a provider, is absolutely vital, the regime needs to be able to fulfil its side of the bargain with the people. This forces these regimes into more extreme positions than they would otherwise take,^[3] in this case meaning that they oppose environmental agreements for fear of the results on their economy.

1. ^ Michel Chatelus and Yves Scehmeil, ‘Towards a New Political Economy of State Industrialisation in the Arab Middle East’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May, 1984), pp.251-265, pp.261-262
2. ^ Timur Kuran, ‘Why the Middle East is Economically Underdeveloped: Historical Mechanisms of Institutional Stagnation’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol.18, No.3 (Summer, 2004), pp.71-90, p.87.
3. ^ Gerd Nonneman, ‘Rentiers and Autocrats, Monarchs and Democrats, State and Society: The Middle East between Globalisation, Human “Agency”, and Europe’, International Affairs, Vol.77, No.1 (Jan., 2001), pp.141-162, pp.146-147.