Workshop on Energy Governance

The Workshop on Energy Governance will bring together a variety of leading analysts looking at different approaches to the governance of energy. The workshop is intended as the launching pad for a project that will take a radically different approach from that followed by most energy policy research programs. Rather than looking at energy in terms of sources and supply, the project will start with a focus on governance processes.

No issue on the global agenda is more in need of new governance approaches than energy policy. Extraordinary economic growth in Asia has irrevocably altered the structure on international energy markets. The next two decades will likely see an unprecedented need for energy resources throughout the region, at precisely the same time conventional forms of supply are becoming constricted. Political turmoil threatens to jeopardize the security of energy supply globally, creating risks of new conflicts and even war. Such instability, combined with the looming danger of climate change, makes clear that business as usual in the energy sector cannot continue without seriously endangering human well-being. Moreover, nearly two billion people lack access to basic energy services needed to improve quality of life.

The multiple and on-going problems in energy – imbalance between supply and demand, vulnerability of energy infrastructure, environmental degradation associated with energy production and use, lack of access to energy services for vast numbers of people – reflect policy and governance failures at all levels. The world lacks an effective, or even marginal, structure for global decision making on energy policy. No overarching international organization effectively brings together the major energy players. Global energy markets are extremely volatile, distorted by subsidies, poorly regulated, and fractured by price signals and block rate pricing schemes. At the national and sub-national levels, energy policy is usually a confused jumble of regulations imposed by multiple regulators, who are often working at cross purposes and confronting jurisdictional conflicts.

The Workshop will address questions such as: Who are the governors when it comes to energy policy? What are the emerging tools and techniques, such as disclosure-based regulation, participatory governance, or networked governance, that might be successfully applied in the energy field? What can be learned from the literature on international organizations and from the experience to date on the governance of climate change?

The Workshop is held in cooperation with the Centre on Asia and Globalisation of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. It thus serves two functions: it is both a Roundtable under the auspices of the Helsinki Process, and a major step in the development of the research agenda of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation.

Date:
4. - 6.11.2007

Location:
National University of Singapore , Singapore