Oil Prices And UN Development Goals

Oil prices have rised from $22 per barrel in 2003 to $96 in Asian trading on Thursday morning.

What the UN Development Programme is finding is that the high oil price is threatening the Millennium Development Goals.

Between 2002 and 2005, the households interviewed suffered some dramatic price increases, paying ... 171 percent more for cooking fuels, 120 percent more for transportation, 67 percent more for electricity and 55 percent more for lighting fuels. While the urban poor tend to be worse off since they do not have the alternative of collecting fuel wood or biomass, the rural poor are no better off, since they are more vulnerable to higher prices for lighting fuels, especially in unelectrified villages.

In the short term, industrial countries will be disrupted, with perhaps more petrol protests as in 2000 , but the UK will be better able to absorb/withstand oil price rises, whilst other countries, especially the poorest of the global poor, will struggle. In the long-term, well, we need to wake up to the threat of peak oil.