Global Energy Market Trends

As discussed in this text, countries with excess energy resources export these to countries that need them. This is an important function of the global energy markets, where energy sources, products and services are traded among countries and companies. While this is the primary activity in energy markets, it is only part of the entire global energy market scheme. The goal of this text is to analyze all sides of the energy markets in their physical, technological, economic, political, regulatory, environmental, financial, and legal aspects.

Global energy needs are expanding substantially as populations grow and economies develop around the world. There is clear evidence that continued use of fossil fuels as the world's dominant energy supply is damaging the environment and causing changes in global climate patterns. People want higher levels of more efficient, cleaner, and less obtrusive energy services. How much of those needs will be met by fossil fuels, how much by alternative fuels, and how much by efficiency increases and expanded energy conservation is a wide open question. Global Energy Perspectives describes the results of a five-year joint study by the International Institute for Applied systems Analysis and the World Energy Council. It presents six long-term energy futures which lay out the alternatives among future fuels, technologies, efficiency gains, conservation patterns, and pollution levels, and pinpoints the key choices that are most likely to characterize the twenty-first century. The primary audience will include researchers, educators, policy makers in private and public sectors and other workers in the energy, technology, economics and environmental areas, but the book will appeal to anyone interested in the future of energy production as a prerequisite for human development.

This outlook highlights climate-safe investment options until 2050, policies for transition and specific regional challenges. It also explores options to eventually cut emissions to zero.

The impact of the changing global strategic landscape on energy markets is being felt across the world, and is the subject of ongoing debate within industry and governments alike. These changes not only affect the evolution of oil markets and their influence on production rates and pricing, but also a host of other factors, including energy security, the effects of global economic crises, and the growing market presence of Arabian Gulf producers, both in terms of their conventional reserves and their development of alternative and renewable sources. The ECSSR 17th Annual Energy Conference, Global Energy Markets: Changes in the Strategic Landscape, held at the Center on November 1–2, 2011, and the papers compiled in this volume as a result, provide a variety of informed views on these trends and their consequences for both producers and consumers in the Middle East and elsewhere. The effects of geostrategic developments on energy markets and the formulation of energy policies in the GCC states and abroad are explored in detail, as are the economic viability and outlook of renewable energy sources, both in light of CO2 emissions constraints and the involvement of Gulf hydrocarbon producers in the development of renewables. The potential benefits and risks of nuclear energy production are explored, as is public sentiment toward nuclear development worldwide—particularly following recent events in Japan, the repercussions of which continue to be felt both in politics and industry. The ongoing effects of the global economic crisis are also discussed, particularly with reference to their consequences for energy markets worldwide.

The major purpose of this book is to lay out the broad landscape of global energy issues and how they might develop in coming decades. While there are considerable uncertainties in respect of some of these issues, many of the defining characteristics of the landscape are clear, and the energy policies of all countries will need to be broadly consistent with these if they are to be feasible and achieve their objectives.