World's Energy Future Needs Fast Action

Governments around the world need to work together quickly, especially with fast-developing China and India, to ensure secure energy supplies and avoid runaway greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA's "World Energy Outlook 2007" (WEO 2007) report foresees a global energy system that's being transformed by the speedy economic growth in China and India. That growth promises to improve the lives of more than 2 billion people in those nations, and to benefit other countries economically as well, according to Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA.

However, the IEA's new report adds, if other nations stick with their current policies while the Chinese and Indian economies expand, the consequences for global energy security and climate change are "alarming."

By 2030, a "business-as-usual" approach would lead to global energy needs that are more than 50 percent higher than today's. China and India alone will need to import 19.1 million barrels of oil per day by that point -- more than the U.S. and Japan combined consume now. Business-as-usual policies also bring annual energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions around the world to 42 gigatons (a gigaton is one billion tons) by 2030, compared to 27 gigatons in 2005.

While oil production capacities around the world are expected to grow over the next five years, it's "very uncertain" whether they can meet such projected increases in demand, especially as oil production at existing fields declines.

"A supply-side crunch in the period to 2015, involving an abrupt escalation in oil prices, cannot be ruled out," the IEA report said.

Governments around the world could help the situation by implementing moves like improved energy-efficiency standards, the IEA report said. Such actions could help reduce projected oil demand by 14 million barrels per day by 2030 and cause energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to start leveling off by the 2020s. However, that would still lead to greenhouse gas concentrations that are 25 percent higher in 2030 than today.

Countries could do even more by working quickly to switch to renewable fuels and nuclear power, and to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions.

"Exceptionally quick and vigorous policy action by all countries, and unprecedented technological advances, entailing substantial costs, would be needed to make this case a reality," the report stated.

Tanaka said it's vital that policy-makers around the world act urgently to deal with the future's energy needs and climate stresses.

"The next ten years will be crucial for all countries, including China and India, because of the rapid expansion of energy-supply infrastructure," he said. "We need to act now to bring about a radical shift in investment in favor of cleaner, more efficient and more secure energy technologies."

International Energy Agency, "The Next 10 Years are Critical -- the World Energy Outlook Makes the Case for Stepping up Cooperation with China and India to Address Global Energy Challenges." URL: (http://www.iea.org/textbase/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=239)