ADDRESSING GLOBAL ENERGY AND SECURITY CHALLENGES
Abstract
The geographical distribution of current energy resources is quite uneven which makes some countries and regions major suppliers of energy products, oil and gas in particular. Key-suppliers of energy products are located in the Middle East, the CIS, Africa and Latin America whereas North America, Europe, and South and East Asia are major consumers. Recent events show that energy prices can change rapidly, reacting to economic, social and political events in oil exporting countries. Energy policies and strategies may trigger tensions between countries. Moreover, there are growing concerns about the safety of energy transportation routes and security in transit countries. In addition, extraction, transportation, storage, processing and final uses of energy resources do impact on the environment in many negative ways.
These basic facts and the development of energy security concepts and strategies in some countries underline the importance of energy security issues and the need to assess linkages be-tween energy and security systematically.
In that context, international and region-al cooperation, organizations and treaties are key-components of energy security and subsequently, a strengthening and better use of existing institutional frameworks should be advocated.
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Former command economies were also characterized by a high energy intensity of output, mainly because of the lack of economic incentives to save resources and a development strategy based on energy-intensive heavy industry.
According to Paul Maidment, “many of the factors behind the recent surge in prices are likely to persist” (“The High Price of Oil,” Energy Brief, FORBES, 8 September, 2004.)
See: Kofi A. Annan, “Where the High Oil Price Really Hurts,” The International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, 3 Oc-tober, 2000.
“The Arctic region, particularly offshore, has huge oil and gas reserves, mostly in Russia, Canada, Alaska, Green-land and Norway. Warmer temperatures would make it easier to drill and ship oil (and gas) from the Arctic” (Tom Doggett,
Global Warming Exposes Artic to Oil, Gas Drilling,” Reuters, 8 November, 2004).
Oil experts depict the world production of oil by an “inverted U-curve,” called the “Hubbert’s Curve.” The U.S. geophysicist M. King Hubbert proposed a mathematical model to predict the rate of oil production and subsequent depletion of oil fields (see: M. King Hubbert, “Energy from Fossil Fuels,” Science, Vol. 109, 4 FFebruary1949, pp. 103-109).
“Conservative (for which read pessimistic) analysts say global oil production from all possible sources, including shale, bitumen and deep-water wells, will peak at around 2015 at about 90 million bpd, allowing a fairly modest increase in consumption” (A. Kirby, “When the Last Oil Well Runs Dry,” BBC website, 19 April 2004).
For more detail, see: International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2004.
See: M. Bernstam, A. Rabushka, “The Dutch Disease: Peter the Great’s Real Legacy,” Hoover Institutions, Public Policy Inquiry, 20 June 2001; A. Cohen, “Confronting Kazakhstan Dutch Disease,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Johns Hopkins University, Central Asia Caucasus Institute, Wednesday/26 March 2003.
Most often, an improvement of the terms-of-trade caused by higher oil prices first led to impressive surpluses, followed by large borrowings and growing indebtednesses, which became unbearable burdens when the oil price started declining, leading to so-called “debt traps,” namely situations where new borrowings are needed to repay old ones.
See: M. Fahmi, “Saudi Al Qaeda Urges Attacks on Oil Facilities,” Reuters, 19 December 2004.
See: J. Risen, “Report Traces Ties of Saudi Ambassador’s Wife to Hijackers,” International Herald Tribune,28 July 2003.
A formal definition of energy security is provided by B. Barton et al.: “We define energy security as a condition in which a nation and all, or most, of its citizens and businesses have access to sufficient energy resources at reasonable prices for the foreseeable future free from serious risk of major disruption of service” (“Introduction” to Energy Security—Managing Risk in a Dynamic Legal and Regulatory Environment, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 5). This definition precludes environmental aspects which are seen as important by other scholars and policy makers.
Information is provided on the website of DFID, the U.K. Department for International Development.
See: [http://www1.oecd.org/fatf/].
For more detail, see the Energy Charter website [www.encharter.org]. Andrei Konoplyanik, who is Deputy Secretary-General of the Energy Charter, is former Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy of Russia, which may indicate that his country may at some stage ratify the Treaty.
The common economic space may possibly refer to the creation of a common market, with free trade for goods and services and the free movement of capital and labor (see: V.I. Voloshin, “EU-Russia Energy Dialogue,” Russian-European Center for Economic Policy (RECEP), 12 October 2004 [www.recep.ru]).
See, for instance: K. Koyema, “Energy Security and Regional Cooperation in Asia,” IEEJ/KEEI/OPEC Secretariat Joint Meeting, 27 November, 2003 [http://eneken.ieej.or.jp/en/data/pdf/228.pdf].
The foundation document underlines “the fact that the global energy demand is increasing faster than the introduction of renewable energy; (moreover) the comprehensive impacts, climate hazards, burdens to the environment, risk of accidents, conflicts around exhausting resources have caused an urgent need to replace nuclear and fossil energy by renewable ones and focus new investments on renewable energy and energy efficiency” (see: [http://www.world-council-for-renew-able-energy.org/index.html]).
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