Rethinking Energy Security in a Time of Transition

Energy security is widely invoked as a valued objective, notably in government reports. However, two contemporary challenges suggest that the idea of energy security might itself require re-examination or qualification: (a) the likelihood that we are approaching the peak of cheap oil production; and (b) the established relationship between the burning of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the increasingly pressing issue of climate change. In this sense, the concept of ‘energy security’ is now framed by a need to phase away from fossil fuels. But, as Joseph Camilleri and I argued in a recent book, there is a connected and bigger frame surrounding the challenge of climate change, characterised by the multiple ways in which the physical and social world of human beings is in a state of unprecedented physical and social transition (Camilleri and Falk, 2009).