A gLAWcal comment on 

Chapter

A gLAWcal comment on 

Strategies to Balance Energy Security, Business, Trade and Sustainable Development: Selected Case Studies

We live in a world shaped by man, where the earth has become too narrow in our hands and many of the things we do have a global impact. The impetus for this evolution is the growing demand for energy, a field so momentous that it is difficult to regulate (both locally and globally) and is difficult to deal with without being narrow-sighted. The Author of the article in comment: “Strategies to balance energy security, business, trade and sustainable development: selected case studies”, thinks that it is important, in this field, to develop philosophical solutions, as well as technical and legal solutions for the energy transition. The Anthropocene, in fact “urgently requires a complete change of perspective on energy and a theoretical framework to understand these challenges The Earth has to be less exploited, and more respected and protected.” Also the current health crisis of COVID-19 can show the world how we can change our behaviour and why we should do that. The risk in the current situation of uncertainty is instead that the slowdown of the global economy will put in danger the low-carbon transition. Also, the increase in protectionist policies, strengthened by the international contrasts that are arising and could arise from the post-COVID crisis, could prevent further developments in the evolution toward a more ecological supply guarantee. In this context, the non-Western approach could prove itself more resilient. Western countries witnessed, during the last century, a drastic increase of both the energy consumption and pollution, they didn’t have to deal with the consequences until recently, when the whole world started polluting. On the other hand, developing countries begin to increase their energy demand knowing the environmental impact that it causes. Without a philosophical solution, capable to constrain and limit economic growth and energy consumption in order to “protect” the earth, we risk our ruin. Maybe the non-Western approach, composed of a “pragmatic” and non-ideological approach, aimed at a transition to a low carbon economy, could be the one to follow in order to attain this shift in environmental philosophy. According to the Author, “if industrialization and the expansion of the cities are done in such a manner that affects the forests, the flora and fauna, the nature might ultimately and unpredictably respond with more and more visible negative effects on our human society, with spillover effects that we cannot even imagine right now, like it was for COVID-19. Cities must really become smart and environmentally sounding for permitting all of us a sustainable future.” In the Article it is proposed a solution where security, trade, investment, economic growth and environmental protection become balanced, reconciled and intertwined, with “a holistic and more pragmatic vision of energy to answer the challenges of the Anthropocene.”