Oil price cap to preserve supply, enable countries like India to lower energy costs: Michael Pyle | Business News,The Indian Express
In an interview with Aanchal Magazine, Pyle justified the high price cap level of $60 saying that the discussions over the price cap level started at a time when “Russia was receiving upwards of $100 a barrel by virtue of high global energy prices".
Q: India in its opening remarks at the G20 Sherpa track mentioned about Global South is unheard. That’s the positioning India is taking and there is emphasis on views of emerging economies. How are the developed economies looking at it?
A: I would say a couple of things. If you roll the clock back a month, just ahead of the G20 Summit in Bali, President Biden… one, he wanted to rally the world to condemn Russia’s war and the impact that Russia’s war was happening on the global economy including around energy, secure security, food security, much else besides. Secondly, he wanted to present an affirmative agenda of steps that we could take together that would address those stresses on the global economy, again, around energy and food. That would, in particular, answer the needs of the emerging world. That’s the agenda that he came to Bali with. Taking steps around energy, food, debt, the reform of the World Bank and the other multilateral development banks. That’s a policy agenda that’s really focused on answering the needs of the emerging world. And that agenda remains our core focus now that India has taken on the presidency of the G20. And we see lots of areas of overlap between what we’re focused on, and what the Indian team is focused on, in terms of their own priorities. So we’re very excited about this coming year, and what we can do together with India through the G20 that answers the needs of the emerging world.
Q: The role of multilateral institutions is also getting increasingly questioned. And also, at a time when we are in the middle of geopolitical and economic crises globally, the synchronized central bank action is also being questioned with a view that developing countries like India should not be at the same pace like the policy actions of the US Fed. How do you see that?
A: First, I would say it’s not appropriate for me, coming from the White House, to comment on our central bank policy. But what I can say is what we are very focused on this being a moment of significant headwinds for the global economy, around pressures on energy prices, around pressures on food prices, around a number of countries that are facing debt distress, around the need for multilateral institutions to have a gameplan and the resources, they need to take on important global challenges like climate, public health. That is an agenda that really speaks to, that kind of presses on the moment, but also speaks more bilaterally, what we can do both now and over the coming years to address those immediately, but also, the long term need to fight climate change to deliver on public health…we’re very focused multilaterally on having an agenda that does those things.
Q: You mentioned bilateral relations including on climate change, but what are the focus areas on the trade? Did you raise them in the G20 discussion?
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