A future international monetary system with a new regime of governance for energy

Friday, November 13, 2009, Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC.

Economists for Peace and Security, the Foundation for Human Progress’, the Initiative for Rethinking the Economy; the New America Foundation, the World Trade Center Washington DC

The concentration of fossil energy resources in a relatively limited number of countries is from the 70s at the core of imbalances and that energy is actually a full-fledged currency (unit of account, means of payment, reserve of value) representing yearly trillions of dollars of currency emission. Energy has always been put apart from the commercial agreements but it is at the core of any new financial and monetary order. Two issues must be addressed in that respect:

· The short term stability of energy prices through the creation of global regulating stocks;

· A new regime of governance for energy in order to move towards sustainable societies and inter-regional justice. The alternative is war. One can see it with the desperate effort of China, the newcomer in the development family, to control oil and natural resources in Africa. This new regime of governance will necessarily be worldwide negotiable quotas paving the way to multidimensional currencies.