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November 10 2009
WEO 2009 out today
It’s that time of the year again. The International Energy Agency has just released the World Energy Outlook 2009 (WEO 2009), and we’ll all be pouring through it in the next few days and arguing what does it mean. Here’s the Executive Summary and, new for 2009, a piece on Climate Change, Energy and the Copenhagen COP15 summit.
I haven’t got round to reading any of it (and the Exec Summary is pontless anyway, condensing the policy recommendations, but not the assumptions behind the results), but there’s a couple of bits in the media that caught my eye: the need to put a price on carbon, and the estimated cost of inaction. Let’s see the first now, and leave the second for later.
The need to put a price on CO2 emissions or demand will go through the roof as soon as the world economy picks up (which it sort of is anyway):
The main driver of demand for coal and gas would be inexorable growth in energy needs for power generation
The developing world will see some of the fastest rates of growth with the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) seeing an average annual increase of 2.5 percent in their primary energy demand until 2030.
In other words, developing countries. It’ll be interesting to see what the IEA says about where the cuts should be deeper (or, if you prefer, who is to pay for the cuts) – if indeed they say anything about it at all. That is, after all, the issue holding COP15 back.
Punchline: climate policy that discriminates against developing countries is pointless, unacceptable and won’t get through anyway.
