6 October 2020, NIICE Commentary 6094
Tanya Kapoor
“[W]e have a World Health Organization, two global food agencies, the Bretton Woods financial institutions and organizations to deal with everything from trade to civil aviation and maritime affairs. Energy, the motor of development and economic growth, is a glaring exception. Although it cries out for a holistic, global approach, it is actually dealt with in a fragmented, piecemeal way.” – Mohammed ElBaradei (2008)
The hyper-cyclic subspace of the non-existence of an over-arching institution to govern the international Energy landscape encapsulates the roots of anarchical situations that prevail in the absence of a defined energy charter agreed by universal national membership of all countries – joining hands to concentrate on both conventional and renewable energy resources and related policy negotiations. This anarchy has historically been observed through the discombobulating actions of the energy-rich and energy-deficient countries’ unilateral energy policy pursuits.
Energy is the foundational grounds on which development takes place. Its continuous supply, demand, transmission, distribution and affordable access to all parts of the world is an imperative for pursuing sustainable development for all nations and populace universally. This is also enshrined and envisioned by the United Nations in its Sustainable Development Goals. However, the Energy-rich countries, by virtue of their naturally endowed conventional energy resources, have been observed to be influencing these international energy policy negotiations with their unilateral energy goals.
On one hand, the energy policies of influential/ conventional energy-abundant countries focus on accumulating oil wealth by increasing their oil production, expanding their international markets, acquiring supply-leadership through dual-pricing practices and several other geostrategic tactics like intervening in other nations’ territorial disputes/ wars arising with oil wars, oil fires, oil spills, price wars, oil smuggling, blocking of strategic air and sea export/ import terminals during Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Gulf War, etc. where the United States along with select European countries like Portugal and Norway intervened through its naval and air means to influence decisions in its unilateral favour.
On the other hand, the energy policies of the influential/ conventional energy-deficient countries focus on reducing their dependence on the influential energy-producing countries. They try and innovate new and renewable energy technology to hedge against the disruptive and unpredictable energy supplies by the producer countries. The disruption of gas supplies by Russia into the European Union (EU) is an example whereby, the former leveraged its natural resource endowment prowess to showcase its primacy and the latter’s dependence in the EU region while annexing Crimea. Increasingly, the dependent, energy-deficient countries are focusing on developing the green energy technology to increasingly cater to their national developmental demands by adopting a resource-mix strategy.
As energy security concern is also a non-traditional security concern, the prospects of it acquiring the centre-stage of national foreign policy always gain grounds vis-à-vis development, sustainability of environment and people’s affordable access to energy in the forms of cooking fuel, electricity, transportation fuel, etc. Energy security is not a zero-sum game that one country’s energy security is at a cost of the other. This is also the reason why select nations participate at the international organizations in energy matters. Accession of the energy-rich countries like Venezuela, Mexico, Angola, Saudi Arabia, etc. mark variations with respect to their time period of joining the World Trade Organization. Their apprehensions of losing too many stakes like international markets, oil pricing importance, etc. as the producers of oil.
These dynamic shifts in gaining ascendance or descendance in acquiring primacy in energy-related international decision-making vis-à-vis the universally envisioned goals are of geopolitical relevance. That is, how countries geostrategically and tactically treat one another in energy trade and diplomacy. Examples of Saudi Arabian non-adherence to the OPEC+ quotas of lowering production levels fearing potential Russian dominance; as well as strategies like dual-pricing, starving markets by restricting energy supplies, diplomatic binding and subsequent exploitation of energy resources of the other country, exchanging carbon footprints with renewable energy technology between G8 and emerging Asian countries, etc. showcase the pursuit of unilateral national energy security interests by the countries participating in energy negotiations.
The sui generis nature of favouring national security interests are epiphenomenal to the over-arching universal goals of sustainable energy pursuits. Historical events and conventional energy-related wars underscore how countries join hands diplomatically at the international level to negotiate with one another to favour and encourage concerted efforts towards progressing towards sustainable energy development for all. However, their unilateral interests of pursuing their individual energy cooperative geostrategies always guise are actually disconcerting, competitive and regressive actions in their policy pursuits.
Therefore, a holistic approach is required at both the ends of the scale – on part of energy-rich and energy-dependent countries – to synergistically and symbiotically participate at the international fora to negotiate energy policy pursuits that are mutually-beneficial and concurrent to the universally idealized energy goals. This is a potential, and not a utopian, ideal which could bring address issues of environmental imbalance, disruptive supplies, developmental setbacks, as well as affordable access of energy to the populace universally.
