International Energy Program

Author : International Energy Agency
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781466433304
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (333 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The History of the International Energy Agency - the First Twenty Years written by International Energy Agency and published by . This book was released on 1994-10-03 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The International Energy Agency celebrates in 1994 the twentieth anniversary of its founding. The marking of this event presents the occasion for a systematic look back at the history of the Agency's origins, structures, policies and actions. Focusing on the main industrial countries' co operation on energy policy, the history begins with the troubled days of the 1973-1974 Middle East War crisis and its immediate aftermath, when the oil producers appeared relatively well organized to utilize their new oil based economic and political power, while the industrial countries were inadequately equipped with information and organization to meet the corresponding challenges to them. The vulnerability of the industrial countries was dramatized in the course of the crisis by the Arab embargo and the shock of rapidly rising prices for oil. During the years leading up to the crisis, the industrial countries became increasingly dependent upon oil imported mainly from one region known for its political fragility. The reasons for this dependence are well understood. The industrial countries permitted excessive and even wasteful and inefficient use of energy and of oil in particular. Energy conservation measures in those countries were woefully underdeveloped. Their oil production potential was not fully realized, nor was sufficient investment devoted to the development of other energy sources as alternatives to oil. They had yet to devise a workable system for responding to serious disruptions in oil supply; and their organizational arrangements for co-operation could not enable them to cope effectively with the institutional implications of those situations. All considered, a surer formula for the eruption of disagreeable surprises would be difficult to imagine. One constructive outcome of the crisis was the sudden and intense attention that governments and populations in the industrial countries concentrated on "the energy problem", and this soon brought calls for rapid responses by policy makers. In situations of short supply in energy, "beggar-my neighbour" policies would have to be avoided as tending to worsen and expand economic hardship, while the adoption of burden sharing arrangements and policies designed to mitigate economic hardship would have to be formulated and implemented. The policy and institutional lessons of the crisis led swiftly in November 1974 to the establishment of the IEA with a broad mandate on energy security and other questions of energy policy co-operation among Member countries. The main policy decisions and the Agency framework were firmly anchored in the IEA treaty called the "Agreement on an International Energy Program", and the new Agency was lodged as a mutual convenience at the OECD in Paris. The Agency would become, as this History shows, the focal point for the industrial countries' energy co-operation on such issues as: security of supply, long-term policy, information "transparency", energy and the environment, research and development and international energy relations.