The present energy economy, with its heavy dependence on fossil fuels is not sustainable over the medium to long term for many interconnected reasons. Climate change is now recognized as posing a serious threat. Energy and resource decisions involving the carbon fuels therefore play a large role in this threat. Fossil fuel reserves may also be running short, and many of the major reserves are in politically unstable parts of the world.
Yet citizens in nations with rapidly developing economies aspire to the benefits of the modern energy economy. China and India alone have 2.4 billion potential customers for cars, industries, and electrical services. Even so, more than half of the world's citizens still lack access to energy. Decisions involving fossil fuels are therefore a significant part of the development equation.
This volume explains how the law can impede or advance the shift to a world energy picture significantly different from that which exists today.
This book first examines the factors that create the problems of the present carbon economy, including environmental concerns and development goals. It then provides international and regional legal perspectives, examining public international law, regional legal structures, the responses of international legal bodies, and the role of major international nongovernmental actors. The book then moves on to explore sectoral perspectives including the variety of renewable energy sources, new carbon fuels, nuclear power, demand controls, and energy efficiency. Finally, the authors examine how particular States are, could, or should, be adapting legally to the challenges of moving beyond the carbon economy.

A new empirical study on oil and gas in Nigeria, which serves as a useful general introduction to many aspects of the country's oil and gas industries and related laws. Contents: introductions - definitions, importance, the international oil industry, how oil was found; the Nigerian oil industry: historical perspectives and acts of law; legislation governing the industry; ownership of oil and gas - ownership theories in the oil and gas industries, sovereignty over natural resources and international law; contracts for exploration and production; the natural gas industry; fiscal matters pertaining to the petroleum industry; OPEC; national oil corporations and the Nigerian Petroleum Corporation; downstream oil and gas law and policy; trade in crude oil and products; environmental issues; oil community issues; topical issues in the petroleum industry - e.g. acquisitions of technology, indigenous oil companies; nationalisation and privatisation; and dispute settlements. Yinka Omorogbe is a lecturer in law at the Universities of Benin and Lagos, Nigeria.

With the inclusion of access to energy in the sustainable development goals, the role of energy to human existence was finally recognized. Yet, in Africa, this achievement is far from realized. Omorogbe and Ordor bring together experts in their fields to ask what is stalling progress, examining problems from institutions catering to vested interests at the continent's expense, to a need to develop vigorous financial and fiscal frameworks. The ramifications and complications of energy law are labyrinthine: this volume discusses how energy deficits can burden disabled people, women, and children in excess of their more fortunate counterparts, as well as considering environmental issues, including the delicate balance between the necessity of water for drinking and cleaning and the use of water in industrial processes. A pivotal work of scholarship, the book poses pressing questions for energy law and international human rights.