Olivier de Schutter, the UN's newly-appointed special advisor on food, recently called on all governments to rethink the policy of replacing fossil fuel with bio-alternatives and halt investments in the production of biofuel, calling it "irresponsible" to formulate such policies blindly.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, meanwhile, expressed the OPEC nations' sentiment by stressing that the wrong assessment of energy resources development prospect has wasted billions of dollars on alternative fuels such as ethanol, while the persistent shortage of investment in the oil processing sector, which is another reason for soaring oil price, is still waiting for the attention it deserves.
The US is aggravating global concern about oil supply stability by purchasing an average of 70,000 barrels of petroleum a day to increase its strategic oil reserve in total disregard of the record-setting oil price hikes. Its total volume of strategic oil reserve has topped 701 million barrels, but Washington has yet to even hint at the possibility of using it to stabilize oil price.
People cannot but question if the United States and other developed countries are responsible stakeholders as they want the world to believe they are. The United States and the EU have been not only stakeholders in the world economy but top beneficiaries as well. Now it appears they have earned the title of leading wreckers, too.
(China Daily June 11, 2008)
