Pacific Asia Regional Energy Security (PARES) Project 12.22.97

Pacific Asia Regional Energy Security (PARES) Project

The PARES project is an interdisciplinary working group of US and Japanese scholars working to develop a stronger mutual understanding of the security dimension of energy in Japan and Northeast Asia. Specifically, PARES is developing ways to analyze energy security. This operational calculus is grounded in a multidimensional concept of energy security to be used to define decision-making options for energy policy makers in Japan and elsewhere. The Nautilus Institute and its partners in Japan, especially the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), are conducting the project in two phases: phase 1 (nearly complete) commissioned expert input from key Japanese and American energy analysts and is producing a joint US- Japan working paper on energy security. The findings will be distributed to key policymakers, media, and academics in early 1998. Phase 2 will expand the working groups participation and subsequently apply multidimensional energy security policy analysis to the rest of the East/Northeast Asian region. The PARES project is closely interrelated with the Nautilus/GLOCOM Energy-Security-Environment in Northeast Asia (ESENA) project which focuses on transboundary energy-related pollution in this region. The working group’s first meeting met concurrently to the December ESENA workshop in Berkeley. The next PARES working group meeting will be in Tokyo April 1998. The twenty expert working papers from the two meetings will be posted on the Nautilus web site shortly.