The Group of Eight developed member nations plus China, India, and South Korea met in Aomori, Japan to talk amid issues, with the biggest being the high oil prices.

They agreed to promote energy efficiency for stable market

The ministers believed that energy saving and efficiency is one of the quickest, greenest, and most cost-effective way to address energy security, climate change, and ensuring economic growth, according to the declaration.

This just seems to state the obvious. We had oil prices skyrocket in the 70’s, and since they weren’t more proactive over the years, we’ve seen oil prices skyrocket again. The ministers also stated that they will enhance cooperation and exchange information on environment-friendly technologies for united efforts over cut in oil demands and emissions.

Everyone knows that developing energy efficiency and technology is the only way that we are going to be able to stabilize the energy prices back to an affordable level, but until they actually do something, they aren’t doing anything but blowing smoke up our…

They called for oil production boost

We affirm the need to maximise investment in our own domestic production and we call on other oil producing countries to increase investment to keep markets well supplied in response to rising world demand,” the joint statement said on Sunday.

And in the same breathe that they want to increase energy efficiency and improve alternative energy sources, the G8 called for an immediate increase in oil production in view of rising fuel prices. This is largely due to the fact that the 11 countries that were in attendance consume nearly two-thirds of the world’s energy. Of course they’re going to want OPEC to increase production. It is those countries that are hurting the most because of high oil prices.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said no new decision will be made until its meeting in Vienna in 9 September. I don’t blame OPEC for saying this. Why would they want to increase production? They’re reaping the benefit of the world’s dependency on oil at the moment and taking full advantage of it. I don’t think it would even matter if they increased production, because we’re still going to use more. It’s the way the trend has always been.

They fear that soaring oil prices could damage the global economy

Japan urged consumer-nations to use less energy and warned that soaring oil prices could trigger a global recession.

Since we know that they will not be able to move fast enough to bring down the cost of oil, develop more efficient technologies, or find a readily available alternative energy source, this quote should read “Japan urged consumer-nations to use less energy and warned that soaring oil prices WILL trigger a global recession”. Also, they still aren’t in agreement on which countries need to reduce energy subsidies.

Since the G8 didn’t come up with anything that can lessen the impact of high oil prices at the moment, I think things will get worse before they get better. I can only hope that it passes by quickly. If the G8 can execute on the things that they agreed upon in their deceleration, we may not have to have another energy crisis in 30 years. However, if they fail, we will be right back where we started.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 7:03 pm and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.