British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned today that the world was facing an oil "shock" and would find there was no easy answer to price rises without coordinated global action.
Brown, who saw hundreds of protesting British truck drivers cause road chaos in London on Tuesday, said he understood the impact on families across the country, but only an international strategy would work in bringing oil prices down.
A wave of fuel protests, echoing similar demonstrations in 2000, began in France with fishermen blockading ports to demand cheaper fuel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Tuesday for an EU cap on fuel sales tax.
Senior British ministers offered gentle hints on Tuesday that the government may be preparing to back down on plans to increase road tax on higher-polluting cars. There was also speculation Brown might delay planned fuel tax rises.
"A global shock on this scale requires global solutions," Brown wrote in the
Guardiannewspaper.
He pledged to put global action on oil price rises at the top of the agenda at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Japan in July and to propose more international work on "a better dialogue on supply possibilities and trends in demand".
Brown is due to meet senior oil industry executives in Scotland later today. A spokeswoman for industry body Oil and Gas UK said the meeting would focus on ways to maximise production from the UK's dwindling North Sea fields.
A spokeswoman for Shell said tax was likely to be discussed. As finance minister, Brown raised taxes on North Sea oil production and the industry has since argued tax breaks are needed to encourage exploitation of older reserves.
But Brown said in the long term, oil dependency had to be reduced and other sources of energy explored.
"If we are to ensure a better deal for consumers, energy security and lower greenhouse gas emissions, Britain, Europe and the world will have to change how we use energy and the type of energy we use," he wrote in the
Guardian.
"We need to accelerate the development and deployment of alternative sources of energy."
Brown's comments came a day after truckers from across Britain converged on London in a vast convoy, closing a busy artery and causing traffic chaos.
Similar protests took place in Wales, causing more trouble for Brown, whose is under pressure after poor showings in local elections and a vote for a mid-term parliamentary seat.
French truckers have also threatened to take action across France if the government fails to respond to their demands that industry diesel prices should fall back to average levels seen in January this year.
Diesel is about 130 pence a litre in Britain, more than double the price in the United States. Hauliers want a cut in fuel duty of 20 to 25 pence a litre.
Britain levies the highest fuel duty in the European Union with nearly 65 per cent of the pump price of petrol due to tax.