Deciding the Future: Energy Policy Scenarios to 2050

Deciding the Future: Energy Policy Scenarios to 2050 World Energy Council 2007 Introduction
9
redistribution. Ideally, this happens through a
process of mutually beneficial cooperation
between countries. While cooperation can
occur naturally, driven by market forces, this
is by no means true in all cases. There are
numerous examples throughout history
where countries went to war to gain or deny
access to resources.
A nation poor in natural and financial
resources has little to offer and is unlikely to
attract support from the rich. The private
sector will not invest there because it cannot
earn returns commensurate with the risks,
and the country is too poor to pay
appropriate returns to attract investors.
There is no transfer of know-how and
technology and no development of human
capacity. A poverty spiral often results
unless there is some form of goodwill (e.g.,
Development Agencies) that bridges the gap
and supports cooperation.
Many countries have entered into
cooperative agreements to their mutual
benefit. Exchanges of goods and services
and international trade agreements are
examples. In some cases, cooperative
agreements are driven by a need to share
common resources, such as the case with
the development of hydropower (the river
being the common element). The
development of international power pools is
another example where parties have come
together for mutual benefit. Such
arrangements often require specific
international treaties or agreements to
enable them. However, there are also cases
of little or no cooperation. In some cases,
opposing political ideologies prevent
cooperation.
Cooperation and integration also has a
broad enough spectrum to embrace the
aspirations and ideologies of all the WEC
Member Committees and is material to the
achievement of the 3 A’s.
The core of this report is the assessment of the
four policy scenarios within the context of these
two axes. It details the policy choices and
actions necessary to advance the achievement
of the 3 A’s.
1.3. Process
The methodology adopted in this report
comprises group analysis with consistency
checks using mathematical simulations. That
means that, in essence, this is a modified Delphi
study. 6 It is also “normative” because it defines
desirable characteristics of the future related to
the WEC 3 A’s (see Section 2 for more detail).
Regional groups, in a series of several
workshops, developed descriptions of how the
world would look in terms of the 3 A’s, including
relative changes in quantitative estimates of the
chosen indicators. Any Delphi study may be
faulted in having a built-in tendency to limit itself
to conventional wisdom and prevailing
6
Energy to 2050: Scenarios for a Sustainable Future, IEA,
Paris, 2003.