Provisional Transcript:
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to participate in the Bahrain Forum and to have the opportunity to meet with some of the world’s top energy and business leaders. I would like to start my remarks about harnessing energy resources for economic prosperity and security by stressing the fact that modern human society cannot carry on functioning without a continuous source of modern energy. In fact, one of the clear indications of how much modern economies are energy dependent is that a country’s level of modernisation and progress is sometimes measured by the scale of energy consumed per capita.
I would like to focus my remarks on three issues that I think are most important from the energy and economic perspective. Firstly, environment concern for fossil fuel; secondly by the accessibility and availability of energy and lastly, the necessity of the energy policies for producing and consuming countries.
Although energy is essential to economic and social development and to improve the quality of modern life, the way we produce and consume energy is not sustainable; neither from the overall consumptions and overall resources nor from the environmental standpoint. Unfortunately, the process that we use to produce and consume energy cannot be achieved without harmful wastes. However, this should not be used as an excuse for not doing our upmost to mitigate this damage. Whether emitted in the atmosphere, disposed in the ground or discharged in the oceans, pollutants have a severe impact on human health and the environment in such a way that sometimes exceeds the carrying capacity of ecosystems.
The challenge becomes even greater when justified on grounds such as the economic aspiration of developing countries.
There is no easy or cheap solution to protecting the environment and to having a sustainable energy future. Mitigating the impact of energy depends greatly on progress, made both by industrialised and developing countries in deploying advanced technologies, capable of reducing green house gas emissions and technologies that have a higher efficiency in fossil energy conversion. We need to promote international cooperation in the area of technical applications and scientific research. It is necessary to incorporate environmental preservation targets into the national, social and economic plans.
In Qatar, we are incorporating energy strategies into our national long-term implementation plans under the wise leadership of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani the Emir of the State of Qatar. We seek to ensure that our natural resources are being utilised in and sustainable and efficient manner.
Ladies and gentlemen, the second point I would like to address is the availability to all people, particularly in developing countries. One of the major challenges facing developing countries today is how to provide adequate, affordable and reliable modern sources of energy, such as electricity and gas to more than two billion people who lack these basic services today. In addition, most of the future energy demand for growth is likely to come from developing countries which could worsen an already difficult situation.
A lack of energy in developing countries has slowed down the social development, threatening economic prosperity and seriously affecting environmental and health conditions of the population. Promoting modern energy usage of these rural areas would not only advance the living standards of the population but also mitigate the impact of biomass usage on the environment and on people’s health.
In their move towards modernisation of the economy, developing countries can preserve their environment at a much earlier phase of development than was the case for industrialised nations, if they embark on implementing the necessary ground work in order to reduce pollution arising from energy production and use.
Furthermore, lowering the ratio of energy consumption of GDP or what is referred to energy intensity as an indication of the overall improvement in energy efficiency must be a priority at the national level in order to preserve the natural environment and to delink energy from economic growth. Although energy intensity could increase in developing countries in the early stage of modernisation, they should aim for a decline as their economy advances.
Providing modern energy usage is a necessary condition for economic development but insufficient to ensure that by itself. It must be complimented by social, economic, institutional and other infrastructure development measure. Therefore, energy ought to be at the heart of any scenario for economic development.
Ladies and gentlemen, the last point I will cover is about the fact that energy is vital for economic and social prosperity in exporting and importing countries alike. In fact, export revenues contribute to the majority of the states’ income in exporting countries. That explains the high concern in these countries over long-term demands that might be affected by issues like environmental impact mitigation policies promoting efficiency and increasing usage of renewable energy sources.
Disruption of the oil trade causes severe economic damage to the exporters. This happens when demand in importing economies decline or when prices drop below a certain level. At the same time, energy importing countries are concerned over the adequacy of resources at affordable prices. Interruptions of energy supplies can cause serious financial, economic and social losses. Even if they last for a short time, the results will last for a long time afterwards.
Perhaps one of the reasons which aggravates the situation is that policy makers in consuming and producing countries are not dealing with energy issues as an integrated way that leads to optimum resolution.
Acting as an instrument in stabilising the oil market, OPEC responds quickly to any shortage of supply by increasing production and attempts to restore stability to the oil market and to prices. In the meantime, cutting production can be applied to strengthen market fundamentals, ensuring that markets are not over supplied and prices remain at fair levels.
Therefore, high oil prices can have adverse effects on the economic and social developments of importing countries and low can undermine development in exporting countries. Even though most of the world’s future energy requirements will be met by fuel fuels, the huge resource base of fossil fuels is adequate to meet global requirements for decades to come.
New technologies are however vital to continue meeting the world’s growing demand by improving the means by which we explore, develop and produce carbon resources.
New technologies have steadily increased proven oil reserves over the past 30 years. Through better dimensional seismic technology, we know have more accurate estimates of reserves. We have seen how advances in exploration technology have led to discoveries of more oil; horizontal and offshore drilling improved extraction techniques, EOR improved recovery factors in all fields. On the other hand, tapping unconventional oil such as heavy oil, tar sands and oil shale deposits are still expensive and conventional sources can become more economical as the technology in this area advances.
Ensuring energy security however needs to be tackled from several perspectives at the global level to ensure adequacy of resources; at the regional level to ensure that trade networks are established; at the producer level to ensure security of supplies and at the consumer level to ensure demand.
I will conclude my remarks by stressing again that energy is vital to sustainable development due to its contribution to social development, economic development, economic prosperity and human welfare. Ensuring continuous availability for energy supplies and services can be attained by ensuring the availability of abundant oil supplies at affordable prices and improving energy efficiency. Preserving the environment must be at the core of any sustainable energy strategy.
None of this can be achieved if we do not improve the level of cooperation everywhere we can. I trust that we can achieve this. Thank you Ladies and gentlemen for your kind attention.
Lord Powell of Bayswater, Former Private Secretary and Adviser on Foreign Affairs and Defence to Prime Ministers Thatcher and Major; IISS Council Member
Thank you very much Minister Al Attiyah. There is great respect for all of your leadership on all of these issues, both in this part of the world and more widely. You demonstrated why in your remarks which ranged over almost every issue one can think of in the energy field and probably provide material for a couple of hours of questions.
