Chapter 8
The Global Energy Governance Structure
and China-Europe Energy Relations
Xue Yanping
Abstract The global energy reserves are limited. The competition over energy
resources among the different countries has become increasinglyfierce particularly
since the two oil crises in the 1970s. As the current global system of energy
governance was established in the 1970s and the comparative economic strength of
different nations has changed a lot, the current system of energy governance can no
longer meet the needs of global economic development and is facing greater
pressure to make reforms. China and Europe are two important players on the world
energy markets, thus competition and cooperation between them in the energyfield
will have a great impact on the emergence of a future global system of energy
governance.
Keywords EnergyGovernanceChina-Europe relations
Traditional energy reserves in the world are limited. The imbalance between tra-
ditional energy supply and demand in the world has never been properly addressed
after the two oil crises in the 1970s. In order to safeguard respective rights and
interests, the main oil-producing countries established the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries and the main oil-consuming countries set up the
International Energy Agency; however, this system has never fundamentally solved
the imbalance between oil-producing countries and oil-consuming countries and the
energy game between the supply side and the demand side has become increasingly
fierce. Since entry into the 21st century, with the emergence of new energy and the
rise of new energy-producing countries and energy-consuming countries outside the
two large energy organizations, the original energy governance structure has been
subject to more reform pressure.
X. Yanping (&)
Institute of European Studies, CASS, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
©Social Sciences Academic Press and Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017
H. Zhou (ed.),China-EU Relations, Research Series on the Chinese Dream
and China’s Development Path, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1145-0_8
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