Gloomy Energy Report Sets the Stage for Climate Talks
By Jad Mouawad
As the world heads for tough negotiations over a global climate deal next month, an influential forecasting agency said on Tuesday that current energy policies were not sustainable, and that a vast transformation of energy use was required to fend off the worst consequences of global warming.
In the absence of a global deal to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for climate change, energy consumption will soar over the next decades. This would result in a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, according to the International Energy Agency, an adviser to industrialized nations that is based in Paris.
“Continuing on today’s energy path, without any change in government policy, would mean rapidly increasing dependence on fossil fuels, with alarming consequences for climate change and energy security,” the agency said.
The warning was contained in the annual World Energy Outlook, a 698-page publication that focuses this year on policies needed to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide.
A part of the report was released last month as a map for policy makers considering how to make significant reductions. Government officials from about 190 nations will meet next month in Copenhagen to try to hammer out an international deal to replace the agreement known as the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.
But international negotiators have signaled that an agreement is unlikely to be reached this year in the absence of a broad consensus on how to share the costs of switching to lower-carbon technologies and fuels.
The recession, the energy agency said, offers an opportunity to make big strides in lowering emissions. As a result of reduced economic activity this year, global emissions are expected to fall as much as 3 percent, the steepest decline in 40 years.
Without a new global agreement, carbon emissions will rise by 40 percent by 2030, the agency said. More than half of that growth will come from China alone, with the rest coming from other developing nations.
The agency’s forecasts are based on the assumption of no changes in energy policy from governments.
Global electricity demand, for example, would rise by 76 percent by 2030, requiring the addition of five times as much production capacity as exists today in the United States. Much of that would come from burning coal; its share of the global energy mix would grow by 2 percentage points to reach 44 percent in 2030.
The recession, which has slowed the growth in demand and allowed governments to introduce energy-saving programs, provides some breathing room.
As a result of some of these policies, like stricter fuel economy standards for cars, the energy agency has reduced its forecast for oil demand in coming years.
Forecasters now expect global oil consumption to grow 1 percent a year in the next two decades, reaching 105 million barrels a day by 2030, from 85 million barrels a day in 2008. That estimate is lower than last year’s forecast for 2030 of 106 million barrels a day. It is also well below the 120 million barrels a day that the energy agency had projected a few years ago.
If the world agreed on stringent emissions limits, oil demand would reach just 89 million barrels a day by 2030, the agency said. That would represent a modest increase of four million barrels a day over current consumption levels.
As economies recover, energy demand will rise. After two years of declines because of the recession, government forecasters in the United States projected on Tuesday that global oil consumption would rise again next year.
The Energy Information Administration, part of the Department of Energy, projected that oil demand would grow by 1.26 million barrels a day in 2010, almost entirely because of a rebound in demand from developing nations. Oil consumption in the developed world will rise by only 100,000 barrels a day next year, the agency estimated.
The recession has not only reduced energy demand this year, it has also curbed investments in new supplies.
In the oil and gas sector, most companies have announced cutbacks in capital spending, as well as project delays and cancellations, the International Energy Agency said. It estimated that investment budgets for 2009 had been cut by around 19 percent compared with last year, a drop of over $90 billion.
The cost of reducing carbon emissions — through energy efficiency, more investments in renewable power, electric vehicles, expansion of nuclear power, and building carbon capture and storage technology for coal-burning power plants — would be high.
But for each year of delay in an agreement, the world will eventually have to spend an additional $500 billion to cut emissions, the agency said.
