The DIIS conference on energy security - 13 November 2008

Two Danish presentations

At the beginning of the DIIS conference on energy security 13 November 2008, the Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller gave a presentation on Danish and EU views on energy and energy security. The main points of the foreign minister’s speech were summed up in an article in Jyllands-Posten the same day.

Also at the beginning of the conference, senior researcher Svend Aage Christensen, DIIS, presented the following short statement:

Energy Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy
DIIS Energy Conference, 13 November 2008
Presentation by Svend Aage Christensen

Good morning. Before we devote our attention completely to the more specific topics on the agenda of our conference – and to an absolutely timely discussion of the risks and threats ahead on the energy scene – I hope you will bear with me the next few minutes while I share with you a bird’s eye view of the energy transformation we are going through and maybe some words of vision for the rest of the century.

We are still at the beginning of a new century where energy will play an even more important role for global security and the destiny of mankind than in earlier centuries. Also we are at the beginning of a transitional period of major historical dimensions, fraught with promises and dangers. An Energy Revolution that can be compared with the Industrial Revolution.

Later in this century, solar, fusion or other energy alternatives will conceivably begin to displace hydrocarbons as the predominant source of energy, with the attendant political and economic dislocation. We may in other words be going through the last decades of the hydrocarbon age. How long this transitional phase will take, that we do not know: maybe fifty years, maybe sixty years? Not exactly the kind of time span we would usually think of as transitional.

Still, considering the magnitude of the transition, and its truly overwhelming importance for human civilization, you might forgive me for calling this relatively long time span exactly that: a transition period.

It is of course of the utmost importance that the task of managing the inevitable tensions of the transition period be conducted in an orderly and constructive manner. This is not an easy task, but easier to accomplish, if we keep in mind the positive goal at the end of the transition period. In the meantime, we are left with the hydrocarbons.

The perennial discussion between free-traders and protectionists/monopolists has left its mark on the global energy scene. Recently we have witnessed an upsurge of resource nationalism, leading to re-nationalization of resources throughout the world.

Despite frictions, the global energy market has nevertheless been generally quite open – we seem to be witnessing an overlap between two of the Shell Global Scenarios 2025: ‘Low Trust Globalization’ and ‘Open Doors’ with these two globalizing scenarios trumping the third scenario, called ‘Flags’, which stands for relatively inward looking states.

In other words, we do have globalization, but globalization with too little TRUST and too much FEAR.
This does not reflect a stable international order after the end of the Cold War. Geopolitically, the world is still a busy construction site trying to come to terms with changing economic and demographic realities. The outcome will inevitably shape the energy scenarios.

In this fluid situation the largest deposits of the world’s hydrocarbons are located in states that are not exactly model children of liberal dreams and international society.

In combination with the warnings in the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2008 yesterday about energy production shortages and insufficient investments – this is the kind of inspiration that leads to a surge of fear and gives rise to ideas that resource wars could eventually be on the horizon.

But it is important not to panic. We must keep in mind the positive outcome at the end of the transformation period. And we need a common, global Apollo project or Manhattan project to make our vision of an energy rich future come true. This means cooperation, investments and trust building on a global level.

To pave the way, we also need a new global public diplomacy – not the usual national public diplomacy that after all serves mainly limited national PR purposes – but a truly global public diplomacy, where all parties involved take seriously their responsibility and their commitment to build the trust, the confidence and the drive for this truly historic task.

It would be a tragedy to let this opportunity slip by and succumb to petty, self-serving zero-sum games about energy – or still worse, resource wars.

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