Many EU nations to face critical shortages of natural resources: report

Many EU nations would face severe, critical shortages of fossil fuels and other natural resources in the near future, according to a new report from the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University.

Some of the numbers, though stark, can hardly be said to be surprising to anyone who has some knowledge of the subject, say commentators.

They say for many of the world's powers from earlier times, rates of consumption as against their rates of production, are quite dismal and worrying.

The UK has, for example only 5.2 years left of oil, 4.5 years of coal, and 3 years of gas, or in other words, the UK has been put in a position where it could no longer import its fuels (much of which currently come from Russia and the Middle East).

Many import-dependent countries European countries would also face an energy crunch. The issue would ultimately boil down to one of maintaining their privileged position in the global trade and economic hierarchy.

Strategic analysts warn if Russia, Norway, and Saudi Arabia controlled the reserves of the resources that the EU nations were dependent upon, then tje EU's leverage over these countries would decline

According to professor Victor Anderson, a "Europe-wide drive" towards wind, tidal, solar and other sources of renewable power, needed to be launched.

BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin reported that the UK government says complete energy independence was unnecessary.

The report noted that Russia had over 50 years of oil, more than 100 years of gas and over 500 years of coal left, on current consumption.

According to the report France was placed in a worse position than the UK, with less than year to go before it ran out of all three fossil fuels.

Dr Aled Jones, director of the institute said "heavily indebted" countries were becoming increasingly vulnerable to rising energy prices.

The EU was becoming ever more reliant its resource-rich neighbours such as Russia and Norway, and the trend would only continue unless decisive action was taken, BBC reported.