Littlesteps issue 11

L I T T L E S T E P S ISSUE 11 2018

MODEL

MARCH 2018 • ISSUE 10

C O N T E N T S

04 07 09 MODEL UN

POSITION PAPER

United States of America Venezuela

MODEL UN

POSITION PAPER

Japan The Russian Federation

MODEL UN

POSITION PAPER

The Democratic Republic of Congo Federative Republic of Brazil Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

M U N - 2 0 1 8 BUILDING OUR NEGOTIATION SKILLS

On the 10th May, Keele ISC students and tutors held a Model UN conference for all the students in the centre. At the beginning of the meeting, Chair David Craig gave an introduction and welcoming speech to all nations. Countries that engaged in this conference were Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Venezuela, India, Japan, Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States of America and the Russian Federation. After the opening address each country presented their Position Paper towards the issue of fossil fuels and oil supply and its uses.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA U.S is the largest petroleum consuming country that has consumed 20.5% of total world consumption of petroleum. In 2017, the United States used a total of 7.26 billion barrels of petroleum products, an average of about 19.88 million barrels per day. Only a small amount of crude oil is directly consumed in the United States.

Nearly all of the crude oil that is produced in or imported into the United States is refined into petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, and jet fuel, which are then consumed.

And in 2017, U.S. net imports of petroleum from foreign countries were equal to about 19% of U.S. The top five source countries of U.S. petroleum imports in 2017 were Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Iraq.Collaboration and Development have been the key to ameliorate the contention which the world have been confronting. This is why the Economic and Social Council under the United Nations have been brought up to existence, to encourage, stress and to urge in certain global issues. The current situation has already described the urgency of undertaking this controversy.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (cont'd) The US priority is based on the national interest which remains the oversight in security consideration.

However, alongside with the usership of a new energy policy devised by the president, to reassure the US energy dominance in the international stage. In order to do so, taking full advantages in America abundance of oil, natural gas and coal is the main goal to securitize our nation. Despite the fact the United States must circumspect in all various concerns and stakeholders.

The US administration have put forward to increase export in fossil fuels and related products, to encourage the share of these precious resources. Furthermore, on imports of oil from Canada, Mexico and other Western Hemisphere nations but less imports from the Middle East and North Africa stresses the importance of global trading and to prevent the forestall of the oil market. By leveraging all of those three.

Venezuela The US priority is based on the national interest which remains the oversight in security consideration.

However, alongside with the usership of a new energy policy devised by the president, to reassure the US energy dominance in the international stage. In order to do so, taking full advantages in America abundance of oil, natural gas and coal is the main goal to securitize our nation. Despite the fact the United States must circumspect in all various concerns and stakeholders.

The US administration have put forward to increase export in fossil fuels and related products, to encourage the share of these precious resources. Furthermore, on imports of oil from Canada, Mexico and other Western Hemisphere nations but less imports from the Middle East and North Africa stresses the importance of global trading and to prevent the forestall of the oil market. By leveraging all of those three.

JAPAN

SAN F

We have experienced great discussions with different groups of students who represented different countries in the Model UN activity.

The main topic of this year is about the problems raised in oil production and we were representing Japan. We first delivered a speech of our position.

Japan is poor in resources such as oil and natural gas but we have high technologies can be traded with other countries.

In order to solve the problem of oil insufficiency, we have successfully negotiated with the Democratic Republic of Congo that we would exchange our renewable energy resources with their oil and cropper in cheaper prices.

Then we have another negotiation with countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, Brazil and Venezuela that we all agreed to lower oil prices. It is an interesting activity that we haven't experienced before.

We had a activity of the topic of ‘ Model UN’ which is a activity the simulate the real meeting in the UN council and have discussed the issue of oil.

The meeting was taking place is the A4 room of the International Study Centre of Keele University, it was simulated as the United Nations general assembly in the council. The meeting was held on the 10 May, started at 12:00 and ended at 16:00.

N FRAN

The Russian Federation We worked as a group with Sherry, Scott and Jeff. We were representing the Russian Federation in the council. There were other group of people representing some countries such as Japan, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Congo, Venezuela, India and United States of America. We were on behalf on our represented countries and presented our position on the issue of oil and fossil fuels. After this, we had to communicate with countries’ representative which had a similar position with us then started a negotiation with them in oder to get a solution on the issue. Last but not least, we had a debate on the same issue with other participants so we could vote for the final agreements.

In conclusion, we believed this meeting can highly promote our skills of speaking, negotiating, logical thinking, critical thinking and the cooperating skills. Nevertheless, the oil issue is one the most important issue in the world these days since the nonrenewable energy is running out real soon in the future, so this meeting has increased our sense of the environmental and climate protection. We benefited from it.

The Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) made clear their position of the need to develop renewable energy, which is beneficial for the DRC, and urge developed countries to increase development in developing countries.

Although there was a joint resolution agreed on between seven countries, except the United States of America (USA) that focused on the key points, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and India made a private deal which caused fury in the conference. The DRC proposed the removal of the resolution. That was put to a vote and among the eight countries, there were four countries who voted “remove”, Japan abstained and the USA, KSA and India voted the “remain”. The KSA realized the growing up fury it may cause to the UN. As a result, they KSA and India gave up the joint agreement between them.

Finally, former president of USA, Barack Obama presented the finally resolution speech with applause. The council agreed on the final resolution with an amendment proposed by the DRC and there was a unanimous resolution by UN. The Permanent Representative of the DRC to the United Nations Economic and Social Council said after the meeting with a reporter that the DRC was proud that their position on renewable energy was being agreed by other countries in the bloc and believes that the joint resolution passed would be able transform the DRC into a better future.

Federative Republic of Brazil Committee: Economic and Social Council Topic: Sustainable development (Fossil Fuels) Country: Brazil We discovered oil in 1930, in Bahia. In 1968, the first ever project was developed for extracting oil offshore and six years later the biggest Brazilian oil basin was finally found in Rio de Janeiro, the Bacia de Campos. As time progresses, we now have become one of the biggest countries of offshore oil extraction with 1 million bpd output from the pre-salt layer and is still increasing as well.

It is evident that this discovery has brought new feets of development and prosperity to our country. In fact, according to Brazilian Petrobras on May 08th 2018, we recorded an astounding net income of 6.96 billion reais ($1.94 billion) in the January-to-March period, compared to 4.45 billion reais in the same period last year.

Therefore, as a developing country ourselves, we appreciate and recognize the need for oil in other developing countries as well.

Federative Republic of Brazil (cont'd) Nevertheless, we also acknowledge the importance of sustainable development and the impacts of oil pollution and global warming on our environment. In 2014, our agribusiness sector, including production agriculture and processing and distribution, accounted for 21 percent of our GDP. However, several studies have shown that Global warming is likely to severely damage regions responsible for our agribusiness. As this sector accounts for a significant portion of the income in our economy and other economies of developing countries, a certain percentage reduction in agricultural potential would lead to higher losses especially in comparison with developed economies. Many also have predicted, with support of empirical data that a peak in global oil production will occur in the near future and subsequently will result in a terminal decline. Hence, we realise the significance of oil conservation as well as the importance of sustaining our environment for our future generations.

In order to mitigate such effects, we have implemented the Petroleum Law in 1997 which has established a government agency to oversee the regulation, contracting and supervision of economic activities relating to the oil, natural gas and biofuels sectors. Furthermore, we have played active roles in International Treaties regarding this matter such as the Kyoto Protocol, proposing the clean development mechanism and the Durban Climate Change conference to name a few.

Our current President Michel Temer could not have summarized our position better “Our government is concerned about the future. Everything we do today is not aimed at tomorrow but rather at a future that preserves the living conditions of Brazilians”.

In conclusion, we understand the need for oil production and we wholeheartedly support it. However, we propose regulations to be placed in order to conserve oil for our future generations as well to protect our environment.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia As the oil sector still remains the engine driving the economy and social structure in Saudi Arabia , we need time to diversify our economy to keep it stable and sustainable in the future. We have ambitious strategies to restructure the oil-dependent economy, for example, His Roya Highness Mohamed bin Salman’s plan to triple the government's non-oil revenues and suppress public-sector salaries over the next five years shows our commitment to diversification.

Furthermore, in order to improve the general image of Saudi being a conservative country, but with progressive targets like the inclusion of women in various fields of decision making like myself, we need stability, and a safe transition to a diversified economy is crucial to this.

In addition, another key step we would take for reforming is a fundamental shift in the Saudi educational system that will focus more on the skills needed for a modern economy.

With these plans we believe our economy would have a successful transition and have a prosperous economy. The idea that there must be a shift is only in line with already developed countries in OECD and not rapidly emerging economies like the BRICS.Â

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (cont'd)

In fact, most of developing countries still need to import oil. Case in point, India is the fastest growing economy in the world. Last year, India’s economy grew 7.3%. Currently, India is the world’s fourth-biggest oil consumer, and energy demand is growing at a 3% clip and India imports 80% of the oil it consumes. In fact, analysts project that development in India and China will account for about half of global energy demand growth through 2040.

Since developing countries have overtaken the industrialised world for the first time in their thirst for oil and the level of poverty has as a result plummeted it proves the reason why maintaining oil supply is not only necessary as precursor for growth but also for alleviation of poverty.

Lastly and most importantly, Saudi Arabia believes that the demand for Oil must be to a responsible partner, willing to cooperate and be part of encouraging peace and stability across the world. This must be the same when dealing with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran which has contrary to international interests been pliantly done.

Summary by the Chair The model UN event is designed to enhance student’s research and communication skills and above all to build students’ self-confidence.

To this end, the 2018 Model UN event at Keele was an overwhelming success.

This years’ topic was a thought provoking one.

At current growth rates in fossil fuel consumption, future energy shortages present a serious problem for nation states. This will impact on economic development and environmental degradation. It could even result in international conflict.

Students representing a variety of governments were asked to present a position paper on this global problem. This was followed by discussion, debate, negotiation and diplomacy in the formulating of a final resolution for implementation by member states.

This month’s Little Steps provides a flavour of the students’ enthusiastic, well researched and thoughtful contribution to this event.

It was an absolute pleasure to chair the event and see students stepping out of their comfort zones in contributing to the event.

David Craig, Lecturer in International Relations and Chair of Model UN Event, Keele

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See you all in Year 2 at Keele!