Role of Regional Cooperation and Integration in Resolving Energy Insecurity in South Asia

Abstract

The key parameter for determining the current position and future development orientation of all countries and regions is energy security (Radovanović, Filipović, and Pavlović 2017; Winzer 2012). Hence, energy security is a critical issue to a number of stakeholders ranging from policymakers and business entities (in particular major energy consumers) to urban and rural communities for which an uninterrupted energy supply influences the quality of life (Ang, Choong, and Ng 2015). The underlying reasons behind such critical importance of energy are its limited availability, uneven distribution, ever-increasing demand, and the energy dependency of all sorts of economic developments around the world (Kruyt et al. 2009). Former United States (US) President Barack Obama noted that every country needs a national commitment to energy security. To emphasize that commitment, he agreed that the US should install a Director of Energy Security to oversee all of its efforts (Winzer 2012). Thus, what is energy security? The United Nations (UN) report Energy for a Sustainable Future: Report and Recommendations defined energy security as, “having access to clean, reliable and affordable energy services for cooking, heating, lighting, communications and other productive uses” (UN 2010). However, in most of the definitions of energy security, four key elements can be identified: (i) availability—geological existence; (ii) accessibility— geo-political circumstance; (iii) affordability—economic circumstance; and (iv) acceptability—environmental and societal circumstance (Ang, Choong, and Ng 2015; Cherp and Jewell 2014; Kruyt et al. 2009; Radovanović, Filipović, and Pavlović 2017).