Energy Security And Climate Change
Energy Security and Climate Change
Recent years and months have seen increasing attention being paid to the issue of energy security. Energy insecurity combined with other global issues risks fueling conflict, repeating past mistakes in history. There are a number of concerns and fears such as oil and other fossil fuel depletion, reliance on foreign sources of energy, geopolitics such as supporting dictatorships, rising terrorism, “stability” of nations that supply energy, energy needs of poorer countries, and demands from advancing developing countries such as China and India, economic efficiency versus population growth debate, environmental issues, in particular climate change, renewable and other alternative energy sources
Many fear that the world is quickly using up the vast but finite amount of fossil fuels. Some fear we may have already peaked in fossil fuel extraction and production. So much of the world relies on oil, for example, that if there has been a peak, or if a peak is imminent, or even if a peak is some way off, it is surely environmentally, geopolitically and economically sensible to be efficient in use and invest in alternatives. Some may argue ideologically that markets will solve this problem. However, markets are good for making profit and allocating resources efficiently for that purpose, but that does not always mean that is good for the environment or for society or for other societies in other parts of the world. Furthermore, in reality markets are not perfect, so even if the theory holds, reality sees a mixture of politics, power play and corruption, even in the most advanced countries.
There has certainly been a recognition in recent months and years that energy security is a concern.
Ignoring for the moment the irony that a major reason that those parts of the world are unstable is because of US foreign policy there, there have been signs for many years that some major companies and industries, have been considering...
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