World Energy Outlook 2007

FOREWORD
World leaders have pledged to act to change the future shape of the global
energy economy. Since the 2006 edition of the WEO, some new policies have
been put in place to that effect. Yet in the Reference Scenario in this year’s
WEO, which takes these new policies into account, projected global energy
demand in 2030 is higher than before and the supply and emissions trends are
worsening. What is going on?
One key answer is sustained high levels of economic growth in the new giants
of the world economy. China and India together account for nearly half of the
entire growth in world energy demand between 2005 and 2030. China is likely
to have overtaken the United States to become the world’s largest emitter of
energy-related carbon dioxide this year and, by 2015, India will be the thirdlargest
emitter. By around 2010, China will overtake the United States to
become the world’s largest consumer of energy. In 2030, India will be the thirdlargest
oil importer in the world. Over the period to 2030, China will install
more new electricity generating capacity than exists in the United States today.
China and India need to sustain a phenomenal rate of economic growth. There
are still over 400 million people in India without access to electricity. Access to
clean burning fuels for cooking and space heating in rural China is still very
limited, despite the near-total success of its rural electrification programme. In
both countries, the aspirations of a burgeoning middle class are driving social
and economic change. There can be no moral grounds for expecting China and
India selectively to curb their economic growth simply because world energy
demand is rising unacceptably, with associated risks of supply interruptions,
high prices and damage to the environment. These are global problems to be
tackled on a global basis.
How those problems might be tackled is illustrated in the Alternative Policy
Scenario, which forms an important part of the analysis in this book. Known
means exist to cut energy demand and change the fuel mix. Global energyrelated
CO 2
emissions could be nearly 20% lower by 2030, having levelled off
in the 2020s. A volume of oil equal to the entire current oil output of the
United States, Canada and Mexico can be removed from world demand by
2030. China and India are increasingly demonstrating their recognition of the
need to act – for example, through their commitment to greater energy
efficiency, more renewables and cleaner coal technology – with other countries
to make the energy future sustainable.
To attain the much more ambitious long-term objective of stabilising the
concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the measures considered
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