17 November 2006, Québec, Canada – Resolution on Improving Global Energy Security

The Assembly,

1. Recognising that energy security has moved to the centre of the contemporary strategic and political debate both in the United States and Europe;

2. Aware that national approaches to energy security are not sufficient to cope with the global and multifaceted nature of these security challenges;

3. Observing that these challenges include: soaring demand; supply bottlenecks; mounting competition for scarce energy resources; energy price volatility; the limited number of suppliers; political instability in major oil and gas producing countries; terrorist targeting of energy infrastructure; inadequate exploration, extraction, transit and refining capacity; state ownership of key energy assets; the employment of energy resources for expressly political and sometimes destabilising purposes; and mounting environmental concerns, particularly surrounding the use of carbon-based fuels;

4. Noting that energy demand continues to rise in all regions of the world, with Asia accounting for much of the increase due to its explosive and generally beneficial growth;

5. Understanding that there are ongoing concerns about the safety of nuclear power but recognising its potential to produce energy without emitting greenhouse gases;

6. Acknowledging that the use of renewable resources accounts only for a small percentage of world energy production, while fuel-efficient technologies and bio-fuels are handicapped by insufficient public funding and costing systems that fail to capture the true environmental and security costs of using carbon-based fuels;

7. Recognising that rising energy prices hit developing countries particularly hard and can undermine efforts to bring people out of poverty, a phenomenon that ultimately undermines global security;

8. Noting that energy prices can also have a particularly adverse effect on already overstretched NATO member country military budgets; 

9. Lamenting the lack of agreement among Allied governments to discuss seriously the ways in which NATO might contribute to energy security as well as the very limited dialogue between NATO and the European Union, which could make it more difficult to respond to a genuine energy emergency in the Euro-Atlantic space; but,

10. Applauding the EU's recent decision to adopt a Common European Energy Policy;

11. URGES the governments and parliaments of member and partner countries of the North Atlantic Alliance:

a. to initiate an Energy Security Dialogue within NATO in order to identify common energy security interests and challenges, and to define those specific areas in which NATO assets and political structures might help reinforce the defence of Western energy interests;

b. to encourage NATO to consider how it might play an active role to defend energy infrastructure like pipelines, refining facilities and ports from terrorist or military attacks; to build upon its capacity to monitor the sea lanes of communication to ensure the safe passage of tanker traffic; and to develop a contingency planning capacity for potential energy emergencies;

c. to promote an Energy Security Dialogue between NATO and the EU in order to enable energy crisis planning and to facilitate co-operation in the event of such a crisis;   

d. to redouble support for research, development and investment in renewable resources, as well as fuel-efficient technologies, while encouraging best energy conservation practices and more comprehensive multilateral and trans-Atlantic co-operation in all of these areas;

e. to advance research efforts designed to promote safe nuclear power and to consider developing a multilateral approach to an enriched uranium stockpile;

f. to diversify the sources of energy in national energy mixes and to look at infrastructure and technical solutions to ensure that no NATO country is fully dependent on any single or small group of suppliers;

g. to support the G8, EU-Russia and the US-Russia Energy Security Dialogue and the work in the NATO Russia Council on terrorist threats to critical infrastructure; to help improve energy infrastructure; to promote adequate functioning of market mechanisms; and to encourage mutual responsibility of suppliers and consumers of energy resources while avoiding the use of energy assets for diplomatic leverage;

h. to enhance multilateral energy dialogue with important emerging consumer countries such as China and India, perhaps within the OECD/International Energy Agency framework, in order to identify common interests and lower the risk of energy-driven rivalries;

i. to work with developing country governments, business leaders and civil societies to advance energy efficiency in the world's less developed regions in order to reduce global energy demand while recognising that increased energy use in these regions is essential to their development;

j. to help developing countries utilise their capacities to produce bio-fuels, in which they might enjoy comparative advantages while rejecting protectionist measures that hinder free trade in clean and increasingly cheap bio-fuels and synfuels, which can be sourced from a variety of suppliers;

k. to ensure that parliaments and parliamentary assemblies, such as the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, are actively engaged in all of these efforts.