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India ArchivesIEA Report Confirms Clean and Cheap Energy Needed to Power Global Development
Without clean, affordable and massively scalable energy sources, the world will be stuck in the Development Trap: we'll be forced to either sacrifice our climate and ecological security in the name of global development or condemn billions of global citizens to poverty in the name of climate protection.
The stark tone of the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008 is a dramatic departure from their normally staid and frequently rosy projections about the world's energy future (I presented highlights from the piece in this proceeding post). The report's opening statement that current world energy trends are "patently unsustainable" will no doubt receive the most attention in headlines across the blogosphere and mainstream news. But in this post, I want to delve deeper into the key statement that follows it: "It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply." While the environmental community focuses primarily on the latter of those two concerns, the IEA appropriately recognizes that the future of human prosperity depends on our ability to tackle both challenges: decarbonizing the energy supply and providing ample and affordable energy supplies to power global development. In short, the IEA confirms what is perhaps the central challenge of the 21st century: developing clean and affordable energy sources to power the globe. Continue reading "IEA Report Confirms Clean and Cheap Energy Needed to Power Global Development" » World's Energy Watchdog Warns Current Energy Trends are "Patently Unsustainable"
Highlights from the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008
The world's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, released their annual World Energy Outlook report today, and it starts out with a bang. The first paragraph of the IEA report reads: "The world's energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially. But that can - and must - be altered; there's still time to change the road we're on. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution." Indian Official Rules Out Global Action Plan on Climate Change
Minister Sibal emphasizes need for clean and affordable technologies to power sustainable development.
As the parties to the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol on global warming prepare to meet in Poznan, Poland next month, India's Minister of Science and Technology weighed in today to voice little interest in a global action plan on climate change. In a statement that strongly favored initiatives tailored to suit local needs, Minister Kapil Sibal told attendees at a climate change conference, "You cannot have a global action plan on climate change. You can only have a global commitment." Minister Sibal, who been representing India at international climate negotiations, said the issue of climate change has to be addressed at national, regional and local levels as each part has different sets of problems. Continue reading "Indian Official Rules Out Global Action Plan on Climate Change" » |
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