Open AccessEnergy and Development
Author(s) -
Gilles Carbonnier,
Jacques Grinevald
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
international development policy/revue internationale de politique de développement
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1663-9383
pISSN - 1663-9375
DOI - 10.4000/poldev.724
Subject(s) - natural resource , centrality , face (sociological concept) , corporate governance , political science , ecological economics , renewable energy , ecology , sociology , economy , environmental ethics , social science , economics , sustainability , law , management , mathematics , combinatorics , biology , philosophy
Published by Palgrave MacmillanThis chapter introduces the thematic dossier of International Development Policy on the intimate relationship between energy and development. The authors discuss the centrality of fossil fuels in the economic growth of the Western world since the nineteenth century and the key role of oil in the twentieth century and question the future of this development model in the face of geological and climatic constraints. They examine the gaps and misunderstandings that separate social sciences and natural sciences as well as recent attempts to establish interdisciplinary dialogue around ecological economics and industrial ecology. The authors then analyse what is at stake for developing countries, inequalities in access to energy resources, the failure of the global governance system to deal with mounting tensions associated with the depletion of oil and the environmental consequences of an ever increasing consumption of non-renewable resources