IEA urges US$45tr ‘energy revolution’
Global power body warns of 130pc rise in carbon emissions
Reuters in Tokyo – Updated on Jun 06, 2008
World governments had to quickly start a US$45 trillion “energy technology revolution” or risk a 130 per cent surge in carbon emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency warned on Friday.
In a report commissioned by Group of Eight top industrialised nations leaders three years ago, the IEA also said that a goal of halving emissions by 2050 would require that the cost of carbon rise to US$200 a tonne and possibly as high as US$500 a tonne. Carbon emissions credits rights now trade in Europe at only about US$30 a tonne.
Japan is urging G8 leaders to set a global target to halve greenhouse gases by 2050, when they meet at a G8 summit in Toyako, northern Japan, next month. The group’s energy ministers meet this weekend in Japan.
The report also said that oil demand would rise 70 per cent if governments continued with current policies – an increase it said was equivalent to five times Saudi Arabia’s production.
“We are very far from sustainable development, despite the widespread recognition of the long-term problem. In fact, CO2 emissions growth has accelerated considerably in recent years,” said Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the IEA, the energy watchdog for industrialised nations.
Scientists say the world must brake and reverse annual increases in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change including rising seas and more extreme weather.
Environment ministers from the G8 urged their leaders last month to set a global target to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
A massive research and development effort would be needed in the next 15 years costing about US$10 billion to US$100 billion per year to develop technology to cut CO2 emissions, the IEA said in its Energy Technology Perspectives report.
“Emissions halving implies that all options up to a cost of US$200 per tonne CO2 will be needed. This is based on a set of optimistic assumptions for technology development. Under less optimistic assumptions, options that would cost up to US$500 per tonne CO2 may be needed,” Mr Tanaka said.
The report said the power sector would need to be “decarbonised” by installing CO2 capture and storage on 35 coal- and 20 gas-fired power plants a year between 2010 and 2050, each with a cost of US$1.5 billion. The sector would also need to build 32 new nuclear plants and install 17,500 wind turbines each year.
The IEA, established during the world’s last major energy crisis in the 1970s, also stressed the energy security benefits of halving emissions, which would effectively reduce total oil demand in 2050 to 27 per cent below 2005 levels.
“A global energy technology revolution is both necessary and achievable; but it will be a tough challenge,” Mr Tanaka said. “We need to act now.”
The report comes ahead of a meeting of Group of Eight energy ministers – plus their peers from China, India and South Korea – in the northern Japanese city of Aomori this weekend, where they will face the daunting task of agreeing on the role of consumer nations in stemming oil’s five-year price rally.
Record oil prices have triggered protests across Europe, pushed airlines into the red and forced Asian nations into unwanted fuel price rises, intensifying inflationary pressures. Coal and natural gas costs have also surged, adding pressure to household and industrial power prices as well.