Credit crisis, global financial dynamics and new cost structures, more than demand and supply, are now driving record high oil prices. Will a spreading recession reverse oil's rise?

Entering a period of "great bubbling" driven by innovation across the energy spectrum.

Most of today's biofuels industry is based on fairly well-understood technology, but there is no doubt that technological innovation will drive the next wave of advancement in the industry.

How should the international community manage the risks of global climate change? Diplomats from 187 nations faced this question in December at the United Nations' climate conference in Bali, Indonesia. Their answer was a two-year plan for negotiating a new global climate policy that would start in 2013 - the year the Kyoto Protocol ends.

There is no evidence that oilfield decline rates will increase suddenly. It is important, though, to continue to research and understand evolving decline trends and further develop insight into the declines.

Fossil fuels provide most of the world's energy and are the foundation of the past two centuries of economic growth. The issue of climate change poses the first serious challenge to fossil fuels' primacy.

Oil prices are fluctuating in line with the latest economic signals - up and down. This will continue until a clearer view of economic growth materializes.

The decline rate is a key link in the chain of factors needed to understand the future of the world oil supply.