Topic: Offshore Drilling
Country: China
Delegate Name: Jeremy Gloster
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All China position papers GLIMUN 2008 committees
We, the People’s Republic of China, acknowledge the detrimental impact oil has had on the environment. As an international community, we must develop alternative sources for energy and shift away from our dependence on oil. For China, this is a particularly difficult task – as a rapidly developing nation, our demand for oil has spiked in recent years. Our demand for oil is projected to quadruple from 2005 to 2030. We have made steps to address this issue, and have found success in the development of vegetable oils. To ease the global demand for oil, we support a multilateral solution as well as assistance from developed nations.
Global demand for oil has also resulted in an intense interest in offshore drilling. While both the economic benefits and environmental consequences of offshore drilling are debatable, we feel that decisions regarding this practice should be determined individually by member states. It is the United Nations’ purpose to secure the rights of its nations, and, therefore, we must restrain from imposing restrictions regarding offshore drilling. The People’s Republic of China will support measures, such as the development of alternative energy, that ease the global demand for oil.
In that regard, the Peoples Republic of China supports nations’ right to continue offshore drilling, but urges the voluntary adoption of environmentally friendly practices by nations which are involved in offshore drilling. These nations range from Brunei in SE Asia, to Angola in Africa, to Azerbaijan on the Caspian, to Venezuela in Latin America, and to the US in the Gulf of Mexico. All of these nations are major global suppliers of petroleum, and unnecessary regulation could seriously impact global oil production needed to support the world’s economic growth.
