Energy and climate change
ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
GOT leads a series of researches on emerging energy issues and claimate change, delivers insightful independent analyses that both educates and drives effective policy. Forward-thinking energy policy should balance economic, environmental, and security priorities against market and geopolitical uncertainties.
Energy Security
Energy security is a term for an association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies. However, the uneven distribution of energy supplies among countries has led to significant vulnerabilities. Threats to energy security include the political instability of several energy producing countries, the manipulation of energy supplies, the competition over energy sources, attacks on supply infrastructure, as well as accidents, natural disasters, rising terrorism, and dominant countries reliance to the foreign oil supply.
Foreign oil supplies are vulnerable to unnatural disruptions from in-state conflict, exporters’ interests, and non-state actors targeting the supply and transportation of oil resources. The political and economic instability caused by war or other factors such as strike action can also prevent the proper functioning of the energy industry in a supplier country. Exporters may have political or economic incentive to limit their foreign sales or cause disruptions in the supply chain.
One of the worst risks to oil transportation is the exposure of the five ocean chokepoints, like the Iranian controlled Strait of Hormuz. Anthony H. Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington warns, “It may take only one asymmetric or conventional attack on a Ghawar Saudi oil field or tankers in the Strait of Hormuz to throw the market into a spiral."
Long term measures to increase energy security center on reducing dependence on any one source of imported energy, increasing the number of suppliers, exploiting native fossil fuel or renewable energy resources, and reducing overall demand through energy conservation measures. It can also involve entering into international agreements to underpin international energy trading relationships, such as the Energy Charter Treaty in Europe. All the concern coming from security threats on oil sources long term security measures will help reduce the future cost of importing and exporting fuel into and out of countries without having to worry about harm coming to the goods being transported.
Climate change
The Earth's climate is changing. Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events—like heavy rainstorms and record high temperatures. These changes can influence agricultural crop yields, affect human health, cause changes to forests and other ecosystems, or even impact our energy supply. Scientists are confident that many of the observed changes in the climate can be linked to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, caused largely by people burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, heat and cool buildings, and power vehicles. Actually, anthropogenic factors are human activities which affect the climate. The scientific consensus on climate change is "that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities,"and it "is largely irreversible."
With this understanding, GOT is working with many other organizations, including policy, business, and research communities, to better understand the causes and effects of climate change. With help from these partners, GOT developed some suggestions to guide climate policies for many governments.
