Energy Policies in Asian‐Pacific Developing Economies

Abstract

Energy is an important and indispensable component of economic development in almost every developing country. Energy policy not only has a profound impact on the nature and structure of energy consumption in each country, but also significantly shapes the scope of economic development. Due to dissimilarities in size, national strategies, natural resource endowments and structure of primary energy supply, energy policies and their implementation are different from economy to economy in the Asian-Pacific region.' For instance, the economy of Singapore is wholly oil-based, but the country has virtually no indigenous energy resources. China is the largest oil producer in the region, but coal remains the dominant resource in its primary energy production and consumption. Thus energy policies in these two countries are very different. China plays a special role in the Asian-Pacific energy balance. In 1990, coal accounted for 74 and 76 per cent of primary energy production and consumption in China; conversely, crude oil only accounted for 19 and 17 per cent respectively (SSBC 1991).There are many studies of energy policy, energy consumption and their relationship with economic development in developing economies and in Asian-Pacific developing economies in particular.* This study aims to present a survey of the literature and critically evaluate the most important energy policy issues in this developing region. We make little effort to deal with issues such as the sectoral demand pattern of energy and energy demand management in developing economie~.~ Instead, we focus on energy markets, energy policy criteria, policy issues related to specific energy resources such as oil, gas, coal and nuclear, and the interaction between energy consumption and economic development. The efficiency of energy use and the impact of energy consumption on the environment will also be reviewed.

The Environment and Sustainable Development in the Asia‐Pacific: Views and Policies

“…As is well known, developing economies in Asia, such as India and China, are predicted to increase substantially their consumption of fossil fuels (Drysdale and Huang 1995;Fesharaki and Wu 1992), thereby becoming major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Ho w best to deal with the threat of the greenhouse problem still remains a major issue (Tisdell 1995).…”