...[It] may be time for the world’s energy authorities to reflect on the long-term lessons to be drawn from this human and environmental catastrophe [Deepwater Horizon disaster]. The US government may be...threatening to withhold new permits... But this will not resolve the fundamental conflict that the tragedy has exposed between the ever growing need for energy and safeguarding the environment. Clearly, the higher the risks in seeking new deepwater oil resources, the greater the risks of potential disaster... Pierre Gadonneix, the head of the World Energy Council and former chairman and chief executive of French electricity company EDF, argues that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster ultimately left a lasting positive legacy by forcing a fundamental reappraisal in the nuclear industry’s safety methods and standards... [The] oil industry will now have to work together and adopt common standards and principles of best practice to revive confidence in its ability to continue to explore and drill safely in challenging deep waters. Mr Gadonneix...argues that the safety systems on BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform were not monitored sufficiently independently of the operator itself... Last but not least, the offshore oil industry needs to draw up common international safety standards... Inevitably, all this comes at a high cost. But it is a cost that the energy sector...and governments can ill-afford to skimp on. [also refers to BP]