The International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged governments to cut their carbon emissions, given a new report that shows developing nations in particular will drive nine-tenths of the growth in global energy demand in the next 25 years.
Even as high oil prices of more than US$100 a barrel limit economic growth, developing nations like China, India, Indonesia and Brazil will continue to consume more and more energy, said Dr Fatih Birol, chief economist of the intergovernmental energy organisation yesterday. They will be fed by all fossil fuels, nuclear energy and other renewables, but especially by coal.
That means greenhouse gas emissions from energy will rise: By 2035, China’s cumulative emissions since 1900 will have outstripped those of Europe.
He acknowledged that hundreds of millions of people needed energy for better lives. ‘The question is, how are we going to meet that demand growth and with which technologies?’
Dr Birol was speaking to an audience of government and business representatives and journalists at the launch of the World Energy Outlook 2011 here.
The report was launched in London last month but this is the agency’s first press conference following the United Nations climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, where an international accord was signed earlier this week for all major countries to eventually commit to binding emissions targets.
Last year, global emissions from energy generation alone came to 30.6 billion tons, a new record.
That puts the world on track for more than 2 deg C of global warming, which carries a higher risk of catastrophic climate change.
That is why countries must adopt policies to encourage energy efficiency, renewables and switches to natural gas.
For example, Russia could double its gas exports just by exporting the energy it would save if it was more energy-efficient. And China, South Korea and India are expected to increase their nuclear energy production by 70 per cent till 2035.
In the meantime, renewable energy and natural gas will grow fastest, as the world enters a ‘golden age of natural gas’ that could even provide opportunities for Singapore to be a regional distribution hub, said Dr Birol.
Singapore is building a liquefied natural gas terminal to be launched in 2013. It has none of its own, but the terminal would allow it to diversify its sources. Singapore gets some 80 per cent of its electricity from natural gas.
‘Unconventional’ sources of natural gas, such as shale gas, are also becoming more readily available as technology is developed to extract them.
But these can leak toxic chemicals like benzene into groundwater and use water-intensive extraction methods, so Dr Birol called for more stringent protection such as concrete walls to prevent leakage, and full disclosure of the chemicals used.
Asked if more stringent standards for unconventional gas could raise gas prices, Energy Studies Institute economist Tilak Doshi said no.
The costs of unconventional gas, he said, are ‘very competitive’, and strict regulations are already possible.
Asked what would motivate governments and investors to put their money into clean energy technologies, Dr Birol said: ‘Carbon prices, carbon prices, carbon prices.’
Dr Doshi agreed. Rather than subsidise any particular clean technology, he said: ‘A tax on CO2 is the most level playing field.’
