The Australian Energy Dilemma

Hosted by: AIIA NSW

The event will start on: Tuesday, 15 November 2011 6:00 PM

And will end on: Tuesday, 15 November 2011 7:30 PM

At The Glover Cottages, Sydney

124 Kent Street , Sydney NSW

    nsw.exec@aiia.asn.au

Posted by: nsw   

Over a recent 25-year period, energy consumption in the Asian region grew at an annual rate of 4.5 per cent, greatly exceeding the world average of 1.9 per cent. Both China and India have energy growth rates well above the Asian average. China has cemented its position as the world’s factory, and its economy is still growing. India has a acquired a global reputation in the world IT industry, and is on course to get to where China is today by 2020. Japan is the world’s third largest economy, and South Korea is another huge industrial complex. These and other forces have ensured that this is Asia’s century. But these and other Asian powers are consuming energy as never before.

Just as Asian powers have an insatiable demand for energy, they are also choked by air pollution, and deeply concerned about their rise in greenhouse gas emissions; not only from an environmental perspective, but political as well. Meanwhile, Australian politicians seem to be in a quandary of their own making. They increasingly trumpet Australia as an energy super-power but, at the same time, castigate Australians as the largest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases.

How will Australia’s conflicting energy and climate policies play out? How will other Asian economies react? Will Australian and Asian corporations alter their investment practices? And how will this affect Australia’s export industries? What might be the implications of these issues for Australian diplomacy in the Asian Century?

Robert Pritchard has prepared a study which seeks to answer some of these questions, and he will present this to the institute. Robert is a lawyer, and heads his own company Resources Law International, based in Sydney. He is closely associated with the energy industries, and serves as executive director of the Energy Alliance of Australia and vice president of the AIIA NSW.