At its January 30 meeting, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) suspended its official oil price band of $22-$28 a barrel, signaling that the producer group intends to pursue higher prices. Explaining the move, OPEC president and Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah painted a rosy picture. He said that last year’s economic trends showed that $50 oil or even $60 oil was a price that could be good for both consuming countries and oil producing countries alike. Indeed, the world economy grew by more than 4% last year, a relatively healthy pace. Moreover, U.S. consumers do seem resigned to stomaching higher prices at the pump.

But the minister might want to consider this before he boasts that his group’s perpetually rising revenue aspirations do no harm: Close to one-third of the world’s population lives today without modern energy services, perpetuating poverty and human suffering that leads to desperation and regional instability and conflict. The increase in energy costs promoted by OPEC will likely contribute to a widening economic gap between industrial societies that can absorb these costs and the developing world. According to a 2002 study by the International Energy Agency, this kind of business-as-usual scenario where the world’s dependence on OPEC increases over time, will mean that 1.4 billion people will still be without modern energy services in 2030. For the past 30 years, developing countries have been borrowing billions of dollars to help them pay for oil they cannot afford. This trend will likely worsen over time if OPEC stays its present course.

Ironically, OPEC countries’ policies of promoting increasingly higher oil prices have not helped raise the living standards of many of their own populations. In certain countries, oil revenues have been squandered in official corruption or used to fund military adventurism, international terrorism, or major weapons acquisition programs. OPEC ought to be careful before taking the moral high ground that its push for higher prices is a good thing that greedy American consumers need to get a grip on. OPEC leaders ought to take a stab at putting the oil money where it belongs, building a diversified economy, and helping its own poor. When they finish fixing their own societies, they should then consider the impact their oil rents are having on the rest of the developing world where by 2030, over 80% of the world’s population will be living, according to United Nations projections.

In the meantime, should Western industrialized countries passively accept OPEC’s mandate for higher oil prices just because we ourselves can handle the ill effects of the bill? I say no. Lower energy costs, brought about by new oil discoveries or breakthroughs in energy efficiency or alternative energy sources, might force the OPEC regimes to pursue economic diversification more rigorously.

The U.S. needs to show leadership by looking seriously at ways to bring the rules of global oil trade and investment in harmony with the rules governing trade in manufactures and services. This would mean building on open trade and investment multilateral frameworks further to discourage nationalistic policies that prohibit foreign investment in energy resources. Without such global norms for the world energy sector, supply limitations that perpetuate poverty in the energy-poor countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia will prevent a sustainable global future.

Ms. Myers Jaffe is a research fellow at Rice University.