Commentaries (FY2009)
HUM Wei Mei, “Global Race to Gain a Clean-Tech Edge”, 14 October 2009
The Clean Technology (Clean Tech) sector is central to establishing the future global economic and political pecking order. It is the industry and the instrument the world will have to employ if meaningful progress toward reducing mankind’s harmful impact on the earth’s ecosystem is to be made. Clean Tech’s significance derives from three key sources: 1) its central role in mitigating the costs of impending climate change measures, 2) its ability to reward enterprising countries with new avenues for profit, growth and development and 3) its ability to provide strategic options for energy security by creating alternate routes to energy independence. Countries that come out ahead in the Clean Tech sector will be more economically competitive, more secure, and healthier. The effects of nations positioning themselves for a new energy future are already giving rise to a new type of resource competition and changes in the geo-politics of energy. Since Clean-Tech relies on access to scarce raw materials, in particular high-technology metals such as Rare Earth Elements and Lithium. Countries possessing these commodities may be thrust into new positions of geo-political power. Climate change has thus given some nations an unprecedented chance to redraw the rules of global commerce as well as to forward new economic and geopolitical strategies. Smaller countries with less clout or without indigenous sources of Clean Tech's raw materials, such as Singapore will to well to assess how best they can fit into such a context. |
|
Tilak K DOSHI,“Jockeying for Advantage at Climate Summit", 6 October 2009
Concerns over both equity and efficiency have led some policy analysts to propose "graduation and deepening" scenarios to integrate developing countries into a post-Kyoto climate regime. This could be done by, for instance, requiring countries to achieve emission targets once they reach the wealth comparable to that of developed countries that already have binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. As affluent countries with relatively high per capita emissions , the newly industrialized countries (NICs) may come under pressure to do more to emit less. |
|
Benjamin TANG,“Direction of Oil Prices? Check Economic Mood”, 29 September 2009
Currently, there are concerns over how various countries would exit their stimulus plans now that the global economy appears to be on the mend. If there is a scale back on stimulus spending, and it retards the momentum of the recovery, one can expect weak demand and high inventories to bring an end to the year-to-date increase in oil prices. |
|
Hooman PEIMANI, “Energy Demand of China and the United States – Can They Move Away From Using Coal?”, 26 June 2009
China and the United States heavily rely on coal as a major source of energy. They are both fully aware of the destructive impact of coal on the environment and have taken steps to encourage the use of other types of energy , particularly the renewable ones. However, their pursuit of energy security will ensure their increase of coal consumption and thus secure the importance of coal for their company as a major source of energy in the forseeable future, although coal will account for a smaller share of their overall energy consumption as their energy requirements grow. A binding environmental agreement imposing major reductions on all the countries would be the only possible development to prompt major decreases in the American and Chinese coal consumption, a highly unlikely scenario in the near future.
|
|
|
|