Putin calls for international ‘energy security system’
NEW YORK, Feb 28, 2006 (AFP) -
Russian President Vladimir Putin, writing in the Wall Street Journal, urged rich nations to create an “energy security system” to benefit the entire world.
“Energy egotism in a modern and highly interdependent world is a road to nowhere,” wrote Putin on the eve of a tour of eastern Europe.
As the current president of the Group of Eight industrialized nations, Putin said, it is Russia’s “strong belief that energy redistribution guided wholly by the priorities of a small group of the most-developed countries does not serve the goals and purposes of global development.”
As he embarks on a week-long visit to Hungary and the Czech Republic, Putin urged wealthy nations “to pass on to the future generations a world energy architecture that would help avoid conflicts and counterproductive competition for energy security.”
To fight the “lack of stability in the hydrocarbon markets,” he said, “coordinated activities of the entire world community are needed.”
Putin called on the G8 to focus on energy security as a strategic goal and “an engine of social and economic progress,” and to develop “innovative technologies ... as an initial step in creating a technological basis for mankind’s energy supply in the future, when the energy potential in its present form is exhausted.”
He also urged the engagement of non-G8 countries in G8 initiatives such as the Plan of Action launched last year at the group’s summit at Gleneagles, Scotland, aimed at promoting “innovation, energy saving and environmental protection.”
Energy, warned the Russian president, is not solely the interest of industrially developed countries.
“Lack of energy resources throughout different regions significantly hinders economic growth, while their unsustainable use may result in an ecological disaster on a global rather than local scale.”
Putin welcomed recent discussions among experts on “increasing energy use in developing countries through a more intensive development of unconventional energy sources.
“And this is where assistance rendered by the G8 in developing and introducing alternative power facilities becomes so important,” he said.
“The new policy of the leading countries should be based on the understanding that the globalization of the energy sector makes energy security indivisible,” Putin said.
“Our common future in the area of energy means common responsibilities, risks and benefits.”