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Europe lays out plan to tackle energy dilemma — but will governments and consumers balk?
Associated Press
An energy crunch that chokes fuel supplies, dims the lights at homes and workplaces, and ravages Western economies may no longer be the stuff of 1970s history books. It could be a vision of the near future.
The 1970s oil crisis gave Western countries a glimpse of what life is like when the energy supply isn’t enough to go around. Worried that an even bigger crisis lies in wait, the European Commission is presenting an energy “roadmap” on Jan. 10 that aims to steer the bloc’s 490 million people in a different direction.
The policies, of unprecedented scope, will carry a plain warning: High and volatile oil prices, surging demand, unreliable supplies and global warming compel Europe to reconfigure its energy supply before it’s too late.
It is Europe’s response to one of the defining global problems of the 21st century.
“It’s the biggest issue. It affects all of us. Just try living without energy for a few days,” said Elena Nekhaev, director of programs at the London-based World Energy Council, a non-governmental organization.
(5 Jan 2007)
Sao Tome and Principe:
Oil and tensions bubble beneath the surface
IRIN
These sleepy twin islands poking out from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean are among the most peaceful places on earth. Now, with geological surveys suggesting that the islands could be sitting on billions of barrels of oil and, with a population of less than 150,000, every man, women and child on the islands could, in theory, become millionaires.
Some of the world’s biggest oil companies have already paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to drill oil in the surrounding waters. However, experts on the effects of sudden resource wealth in poor countries are sounding the alarm that Sao Tome and Principe could destabilise and even collapse.
“The production of natural resources is liable to give rise to various types of political frustrations within a country.” That is the view of such leading economists as Jeffrey D. Sachs, and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz, writing in the introduction to ‘Escaping the Resource Curse’ a book to be released by Columbia University Press in June 2007, which cites Principe and Sao Tome as one country at risk.
The authors warn that, “resource-rich countries grew less rapidly than resource-poor countries during the last quarter of the twentieth century.” Plus, they said, “[research suggests] a strong association between resource wealth and the likelihood of weak democratic development, corruption, and civil war.”
Yet researchers specialized on Sao Tome remain divided over whether it is going the same way. It does not have a history of social tensions and there has not been political bloodshed.
(5 Jan 2007)
India’s PM Says West is Environmentally Wasteful
R. Bhagwan Singh, Reuters via ENN
CHIDAMBARAM, India — Slamming the West for its “environmentally wasteful lifestyle”, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on Wednesday for industrialised nations to look at alterative energy sources to save the environment.
“We, in the developing world, cannot afford to ape the West in terms of its environmentally wasteful lifestyle,” Singh said at a science conference in Chidambaram, 195 km (120 miles) south of Tamil Nadu’s state capital, Chennai.
“Equally, developed industrial economies must realise that they too must alter their consumption patterns so that few do not draw upon so much of the Earth’s resources.”
…Addressing more than 5,000 scientists, Singh said India’s energy security demanded the development of affordable sources of renewable energy.
“We have invested billions of rupees in developing a range of energy sources. Be it hydel (hydro) power, thermal or nuclear power, we have to improve the productivity of investments already made,” he said.
New environment-friendly technologies being developed to cut carbon emissions must be shared and made available to all so that the planet could be saved, he said.
(4 Jan 2007)
Intelligent Growth: A Vision for a New Low-Energy Economy
Stephan Harding, AlterNet.
Continuing with standard economic growth will not halt the unfolding environmental crisis. But employing “tradable energy quotas” to ration the use of fossil fuels just might.
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…how to move the global economy from growth to steady state? For many years I thought that this issue was insoluble, for at least two reasons. Firstly, it would clearly be impossible to decide upon and monitor steady state exploitation rates for every single resource needed by society. Secondly, any nation that had made a unilateral decision to implement a steady state economy would immediately be wiped out by competitors that hadn’t.
So are there any feasible means for making the shift happen? After spending time with David Fleming, who recently taught here at Schumacher College, I’m now beginning to think that it can be done. The answer is for a national government — any government in the rich world would do — to adopt David’s ingenious concept of Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), which is essentially a system for rationing our use of fossil fuels, currently our major source of energy.
Stephan Harding is coordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science at the Schumacher College in Devon. He is author of “Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia,” published by Green Books.
(4 Jan 2007)
