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Twenty-fifth Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference
The impact of oil prices acted as a constant constraint upon the development of the underdeveloped countries, but the solution to the problem did not lie in conservation, alternative sources of energy, or nuclear power, all of which could be used by the rich countries to perpetuate the
to perpetuate the exploitation of the poorer countries. Instead, underdeveloped countries should pool their material and human resources, and use their own oil for their own development.
A Canadian delegate observed that the present period was one of transition to a new energy base, as yet unforeseeable because of the lack of any international blueprint. The major sources of energy during this period of adjustment would still be oil and gas, water power, coal and nuclear energy, but sooner or later the switch to renewable energy resources would have to be made.
A delegate from Lesotho noted the alarming increase in oil prices, and the fact that Lesotho was prejudiced in obtaining oil because what it received was processed in South Africa, which was obliged to obtain oil on the spot market, having been denied access to OPEC oil because of its apartheid policies. Inasmuch as those prices were passed on, Lesotho was the victim of circumstances it had not created. Lesotho had been assured of oil supplies from friendly countries via Mozambique, and it was to be hoped that South Africa would not charge exorbitant prices for the transit of that oil through its territory.
It was to be hoped also that the oil-producing countries would come to the aid of the Third World countries.
Sri Lanka, said one of its delegates, now spent 25 percent of its total foreign exchange on oil compared with 10 percent before the crisis. That had created immense hardship. Kerosene, widely used for domestic and lighting purposes among both rural and urban people, had been increased in price by almost 300 percent. In the most affluent countries the crisis probably meant eliminating the third family car. To the poor of the earth it meant the elimination of one meal daily.
Another frightening aspect was the loss of foreign aid. The developing countries pleaded to their friends in the developed world that, while they cut down their own public expenditure, they should let the axe fall gently, if indeed at all, on foreign aid. This might be in their own self-interest, for international trade and interdependency were such that they could ill afford to see the developed nations poorer.
The threat to world security, strains on the Commonwealth, and the widening gap between developed and Third World countries were also stressed by the Rajasthan delegate. The latter countries had piled up some $280 billion in foreign debts on imported petrol alone.
In the next five years all India's export earnings would be wiped out by petrol imports from OPEC countries. With a continued economic growth rate of about 6 percent per annum, his country's commercial energy consumption would increase by four times by the year 2000 unless less energy-intensive growth patterns could be devised. A shift from capital- intensive technology to decentralised production wherever possible was therefore being sought, plus intensified oil exploration, but a co-ordinated international technical effort to develop alternative energy sources was essential. The United States and Canada had a special responsibility here, when half of the United States' billion barrels of oil had already been consumed and Canada's domestic oil production was on the decline.
A United Kingdom delegate felt that the many reproaches to the profligate West were fully justified. However, it was increasingly being seen by those not seduced by the nuclear industries of the West that a prosperous low-energy future was possible. It was unnecessary to capitulate to the alleged inevitability of the plutonium atomic energy system.
The degree of surveillance required to protect plutonium from falling into evil hands could subvert the freedom upon which democracies stood. Less developed countries which, fearing fuel shortages, took the nuclear option would be subjugated by a new imperialism- nuclear imperialism. Even if the nuclear route eventually provided atomic-powered electricity, that would help only those in towns and leave abandoned the rural poor who made up the great majority of the poorest people in the world. Only 4 percent of rural Africans had access to electricity. What use would atomic electricity be to them?
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