Petroleum and natural gas minister Hardeep Puri represented India at a virtual meeting on emerging fuels and energy modelling.
“There does not exist one uniform low-carbon pathway working equally well for all the countries, and each country is free to chart out its own unique path based on national priorities and resources,” the SCO said. There has been a push by the richer world to bring down the global use of coal. But a forced reduction in coal consumption can increase the energy security risk for countries endowed with coal as they would then depend more on imports of other fuels to meet their energy needs.
Puri said every member state is concerned about energy affordability, although some bigger countries have a greater ability to deal with price increases than others. Oil and gas prices surged in the past year, forcing each country to figure out its own mechanism to deal with the volatility.
“You can’t sit in India and determine what the global prices would be. I mean, that is determined by OPEC, by how much supplies they decide to release,” said Puri.
The SCO comprises eight member states – India, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
OPEC+, the producer club led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, has kept a curb on supplies, contributing to higher global oil prices in the past year.
