The WAGE Governing Global Energy Collaborative will identify emerging conflicts arising from changing energy policies, examine how they relate to existing global governance mechanisms, and assess the preparedness of those mechanisms for tackling these new conflicts.

Tracey Holloway
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, and Civil & Environmental Engineering
Bernard Lesieutre
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Greg Nemet
Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Environmental Studies
Paul Wilson
Associate Professor of Engineering Physics

Project Overview:

With global attention focused on the availability of fossil fuels to meet increasing energy consumption, there is a rush to identify and deploy alternatives. The wide variety of technical and social solutions being proposed at local, regional and global levels creates a complex international energy marketplace with the potential to generate new conflicts and inequities on a global scale. The growing concern over the impact of high oil prices on the economy, increased awareness of the environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels, and links between the race to biofuels and food insecurity illustrate the potential dilemmas. The reality is that few, if any, transnational mechanisms exist to govern the impacts of energy policies on global trade, environment and security in an integrated fashion.

The Governing Global Energy collaborative will examine the level of preparedness of existing global governance mechanisms to manage new conflicts and inequities that emerge from changes to the way energy services are produced and consumed in the global marketplace. The research will center on three broad themes:

1) new competition between energy, food, and water as in the case of biofuels;

2) constraints imposed by global environmental agreements on energy options; and

3) security concerns driven by inequities in energy resources and technology distributions.