Abstract
The link between energy, economic development and national security has often made governments reluctant to address energy in global governance. In the United Nations (UN) system and beyond, the result has been almost a normative and institutional vacuum on energy. In the last decade some efforts have been made to fill this vacuum within the UN but they have faced considerable resistance, and instead initiatives have multiplied outside it. This article outlines the dynamics of the low profile of the energy issue on the agenda of the UN since the organisation’s birth, analyses in more detail the efforts to strengthen this agenda in the 2000s, and also why they failed. Finally, it discusses possible future options for the UN and the international community at large to address this urgent issue, situates this discussion in the rationalist and constructivist theories of effective and legitimate global governance and outlines further research avenues.
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