SHAPING THE WORLD’S ENERGY FUTURE THROUGH G7 & G20 GOVERNANCE
T he future of world energy will be shaped by the response to several interconnected crises – climate change’s relentless global warming and extreme weather events, deadly conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere, cyberattacks on North America’s critical energy infrastructure, and crippling debts and deficits in developing and key developed countries. Yet the global community still lacks a comprehensive, competent world energy organization to respond to them and the United Nations’ periodic energy-related summits have failed to meet the need. The task of governing global energy in the way we need today and tomorrow thus falls to the world’s two key plurilateral summits institutions – the Group of Seven (G7) major advanced democratic powers and the Group of 20 (G20) systemically significant states. Their performance and prospects show that a clean, green, economically and ecologically sustainable, equitable energy future is possible, but they still have much to do to deliver it. G7 Energy Governance The G7 has been the first, fastest, most far-reaching and formidable global energy governor. At its first summit, in 1975, it recognized the existence and value of energy, with a focus on the future in an ecologically supportive way. Its leaders declared: “The industrial democracies are determined to overcome … serious energy problems … Our common interests require that we continue to cooperate in order to reduce
The future of world energy will be shaped by the response to several interconnected crises – climate change’s relentless global warming and extreme weather HYHQWVGHDGO\FRQŴLFWVLQ8NUDLQH and elsewhere, cyberattacks on North America’s critical energy infrastructure, and crippling debts DQGGHƓFLWVLQGHYHORSLQJDQG NH\GHYHORSHGFRXQWULHV<HWWKH global community still lacks a comprehensive, competent world energy organization to respond to them — and the United Nations’ periodic energy-related summits have failed to meet the need, writes John Kirton.
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THE FUTURE OF ENERGY
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