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ABSTRACT
Should current trends continue, China and India are widely expected to play leading roles in the world economy in the twenty-first century. However, the economic rise of China and India coincides with the decline of fossil fuels. There is growing consensus that the world's total oil production is likely to reach its peak in the near future and, to alleviate global warming, it is necessary to dramatically reduce the use of all forms of fossil fuels. This article discusses the interactions between the economic rise of China and India and the global energy crisis. Several scenarios that range from the failure of the Chinese and the Indian national development projects to global environmental catastrophes are discussed.
KEY WORDS: China, India, peak oil, global energy crisis, world economy
The spectacular growth of the Chinese and the Indian economies is transforming the world at an unprecedented pace. Under current trends, it is suggested that China is set to become the world's largest and India the third largest economy by 2020. Some predict that after centuries of Western domination, now it is just a matter of time before Asia recovers its historical leadership over the world economy, with China and India at its centre (Arrighi and Silver, 1999; Arrighi et al., 2003).
The rise of Western industrial capitalism under the British and American hegemony coincided with (and one may say, depended upon) the enormous expansion of energy consumption, especially the consumption of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal). Today fossil fuels account for 80% of the world's total primary energy supply. However, there is growing consensus that the world's total oil production is likely to reach its peak in the near future and experience an irreversible decline thereafter. Further, the greenhouse gas emissions from human activities (primarily from the use of fossil fuels) contribute to global warming with potentially catastrophic consequences. To prevent or alleviate these, it is necessary to dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels.
In this context, a serious question may be raised: does the world have enough energy and other resources to accommodate China's and India's search for material abundance, with their enormous population? To the extent that this cannot be accomplished easily, what could be the implications for China and India,...