CCTV9英语新闻：Experts seek to balance development & environment at Pacific Energy Summit

The 2015 Pacific Energy Summit has opened in Beijing, under the theme 'Strengthening Markets for Energy and Environmental Security'. The three-day meetings convene an exclusive group of hundreds of experts from around the world to discuss how to meet rising energy demand while staving off climate change.

 

More than 200 leaders from government, business, and research organizations around the world. They have gathered in Beijing for one goal, exploring market-based solutions that can balance the goals of sustaining economic growth and protecting the environment.

 

"What we are trying to do is to inform policy makers across Asia and the US that it’s important to have strong and sensible energy policies relying more on markets to move things around and find relevant prices," Mikkal e. Herberg, research director of The National Bureau Of Asian Research, said.

 

China's drive for a cleaner and more efficient energy grid was given a boost in April when the government issued four documents on power sector reform.

 

The documents outlined long-awaited upgrades, taking a stronger stance on environmental protection, and emphasized the increased use of market mechanisms.

 

Herberg adds that the market needs proper regulations to help ensure more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy supplies.

 

"You need some policy push to encourage the use of renewable energy sources, develop non-fossil energy supplies. Policy can also help equalize prices to make sure those supplies are competitive, but you need the markets to decide where the supplies go, where the investment goes. You need the policy to control so that the energy markets won’t fail on you," Mikkal said.

 

Experts say the Asia-Pacific needs tremendous amounts of trade and investment to satisfy rising aspirations for both energy and environmental security. The greatest need is for markets that can simultaneously balance the goals of reaching sustained economic growth on one hand, and a safeguarded environment on the other. But how we can make the energy markets operate efficiently is still open to discussion.