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1 March 2012
The sustainable development concepts are not being implemented, as the current world order relies on the values inherent in technocratic culture and consumer psychology. This was the conclusion reached by the round table “Sustainable Development: World Trends and Strategic Ways of Russia” held on 27 February in Moscow. The event was conducted in preparing to the tenth Moscow International Energy Forum “Russian Fuel and Energy Complex in the XXI Century”.
Over 30 leading experts and scientists who represented mostly RAS academic institutes and non-governmental organizations took part in the round table. The event was conducted as an open session of MIEF-2012 Program Committee. Among the speakers were: A.I. Gromov, V.I. Danilov-Danilyan, V. Emelyanov, A.P. Epishov, G.A. Ivashentsov, A.O. Kokorin, N.K. Semyonova, A.D. Khaytun, V.F. Tsibulsky, A.N. Chumakov, Yu.V. Yakovets.
The first session “World Economic Order and Sustainable Development: Key Problems and Solutions” analyzed the global risks and threats to the today’s international community development and the key principles and values underlying the current world social-economic order and international politic relations. Special attention was paid to analyzing the factors that provoked the systemic crisis of the world economy; especially, the consequences of the liberal-market development model that were introduced into various national economies over the recent decades. The participants unanimously agreed that the sustainable development concepts were not being implemented, since the current economic order relied on the values inherent in technocratic culture and consumer psychology. A most polemical issue of the first session’s discussion was the relation of the sustainable development to the globalization and, especially, the global management in the today’s world. The participants divided into two groups taking different stands. The first group stood up for the thesis that the globalization was mostly a natural historical process and, thus, could not be controlled. Their opponents referred to the notion of designed globalization and claimed that the globalization was imposed by the Western leaders and its development followed the scenario written in advance. Consensus was obtained in understanding that the global community needed a new coordination level for its development and a new comprehension level for its common interests, responsibilities and actions. Another question in much debate was the analysis of the values underlying the current global politic system of international relations. The session heard some advocates of politic realism who stated that the national interests would always be defended with military and politic strength, economic and technologic superiority. However, most speakers agreed that the old approaches would not be effective in the 21st century and that all the efforts would be in vain, if one party tried to get advantages at the cost of other party’s interests. It was also noted that equal mutually beneficial cooperation and orientation to the common interests and actions were the only way to promote peaceful, safe, stable and sustainable development. The participants consented that one could hardly exaggerate the role of the science-expert community and, more generally, civil society in active advocacy and implementation of the sustainable development concepts. Moreover, a number of speeches told that, at the moment, it was only the expert community who realized the scale of the real threats to the mankind’s future; therefore, it should make all possible efforts to urge the business community and authorities to more active and large-scale measures that would establish a new development paradigm. This new paradigm should be based on comprehension of the new values of the 21st century with a view to counterbalance the dominating values of the technocratic consumer society.
The second session was named “Sustainable Development and World Energy: Trends, Challenges and Strategies. Russia’s Energy Strategy in the Context of Sustainable Development”. It was devoted to the problems of development of the world power industry and Russian fuel and energy complex. Therewith, most attention was focused on such points as energy security and sustainable energy development. The round table participants stressed that the international energy security directly depended on the political stability in the world. Basing on this thesis, the round table analyzed the processes and trends observed in the global politics and international relations; they considered peculiarities of the development of several world regions possessing considerable deposits of primary energy resources. It was highlighted that expeditious settlement of the conflict situations in the Middle East and Iran would contribute to strengthening the global energy security. Several reports examined the processes observed in the oil-and-gas sector of some countries in Central Asia and the Middle East; thereby, they demonstrated that the geostrategic rivalry of the countries being the leading energy resource consumers was aimed at favorable conditions for long-term and stable access to those resources.
In speaking of the energy strategies and technological development of the global power industry, the discussers noted that, on the one hand, the given development stage saw oppositely directed and contradictory tendencies and, on the other hand, there was a clear first-priority trend towards developing the renewable energy sources, unconventional hydrocarbons and better energy efficiency. Meanwhile, according to most speakers and discussers, the energy efficiency was becoming a new fundamental characteristic of the 21st century’s global power insudtry. Russia’s energy strategy was another hot issue of the discussion. Some speakers said that one had to be realistic and understand that, with the hydrocarbon prices constantly growing, no government could change the resource orientation of Russian economy. On the contrary, some participants declared that the modern economy mostly appreciated the intellectual property, patent and new technologies, rather than the resources. And, unless Russia turned to first-priority development of the education and science, unless it cardinally restructured its economy and increased the competition level, this country was doomed to lag behind the major states in the global hierarchy. The discussers highlighted that Russia needed faster growth of energy efficiency, unconventional and distributed energy, as well as intensification of the engineering research in these domains.It was also noted that the new politic situation in Russia determined by the protest social movements provided a new opportunity for the expert community to take more active and efficient part in development and implementation of the strategic solutions in the energy domain.
In the nearest future, MIEF Directorate will enrich the Forum’s website with photo and video reports about the round table, video interviews with the key speakers and records of the speeches.
Translated from Russian into English by Literra translation bureau
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