Governing Global Energy: Myth or Reality?

This article outlines the main achievements and failures of the informal institutions such as the Group of Seven, Groupof Eight (G8), Group of 20(G20) and the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in global andregional energy governance. While a plethora of different specialized and general institutions either promotes the interestsof segments of the participants in global energy interaction (such as the International Energy Agency or Organization ofPetroleum Exporting Countries) or tries to manage an aspect of the energy mix (hydrocarbons, alternative or renewables),none of the existing formal international organizations is able to perform the role of harmonizing the differing interestsof all those actors. The only existing organization that could potentially claim that function - the International EnergyForum - remains largely ineffective and without a proper mandate. At the same time, informal gatherings of the “club”type, while not able to fill in that gap, could at least generate consensus on the urgent steps to be taken to create a stable, fairand inclusive energy governance architecture. Since its recent action against Russia, the G8 has lost its possible influencein order to achieve that goal. The G20 thus seems to be the most appropriate forum, with BRICS within it being the mainengine for generating the necessary acceptable rules and providing a skeletal architecture for global energy governance andexisting formal institutions serving as the foundation for further progress.