The International Energy Agency warned Wednesday that failure to curb the world's addiction to fossil fuels would result in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions rising by one third by 2020 and almost doubling by 2050.
The IEA said in a report prepared for an international ministerial meeting on clean energy in London that progress was being made on renewable energy but that most clean energy technologies were not being deployed quickly enough.
"Energy-related CO2 emissions are at historic highs," the agency's deputy executive director, Richard Jones, said. "Under current policies, we estimate that energy use and CO2 emissions would increase by a third by 2020, and almost double by 2050. This would likely send global temperatures at least 6 degrees higher. Such an outcome would confront future generations with significant economic, environmental and energy security hardships," he said.
The countries represented at the meeting together account for 80% of world energy demand and also about two thirds of projected demand growth over the next 10 years.
IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven wrote in the London Guardian newspaper on Tuesday that the world's energy system was "being pushed to breaking point" and its addiction to fossil fuels growing stronger every year.
She said the many clean energy technologies available were not being deployed quickly enough "to avert potentially disastrous consequences."
the report, meanwhile, referred to a number of significant events over the past two years — the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, and the uprisings across the Arab world, which had led to oil supply disruptions from North Africa.
"Taken together, these trends and events emphasize the need to rethink our global energy system," the report said.
The IEA said that "a few" clean energy technologies were currently on track to meet the goal of limiting temperature rises to 2 degrees C, noting that the past decade had seen cost reductions and significant annual growth rates of 27% and 42% respectively for onshore wind and solar photo-voltaic.
"Even more impressive is the 75% reduction in system costs for solar PV in as little as three years in some countries. This serves as evidence that rapid technology change is possible," it said.
"Unfortunately, however, the report concludes that most clean energy technologies are not on track to make their required contribution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and thereby provide a more secure energy system," the IEA said.
"If the 2DS [2 degrees C] objectives are achieved, CO2 emissions among CEM [Clean Energy Ministerial] member countries would decrease by over 5 gigatonnes, and they would save 7,700 million tonnes of oil equivalent through reduced fuel purchases," it said.
"Globally, the near-term additional investment cost of achieving these objectives would amount to $5 trillion by 2020, but $4 trillion will be saved through lower fossil fuel use over this period. The net costs over the next decade are therefore estimated at over $1 trillion," it said.
"More impressively," it added, "by 2050, energy and emissions savings increase significantly as CO2 emissions peak, and begin to decline from 2015. In this timeframe, benefits of fuel savings are also expected to surpass additional investment requirements for decarbonizing the energy sector."
The IEA said the technologies with the greatest potential for energy and carbon dioxide emissions savings were making the slowest progress.
"Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is not seeing the necessary rates of investment into full-scale demonstration projects and nearly one half of new coal-fired power plants are still being built with inefficient technology; vehicle fuel-efficiency improvement is slow; and significant untapped energy-efficiency potential remains in the building and industry sectors," it said.
The agency said the transition to a low-carbon energy sector was affordable and represented "tremendous" business opportunities but that investor confidence remained low "due to policy frameworks that do not provide certainty and address key barriers to technology deployment."
"Private sector financing will only reach the levels required if governments create and maintain supportive business environments for low-carbon energy technologies," it said.
The IEA said its report offered "three over-arching policy recommendations for changing this status quo and moving clean-energy technologies to the mainstream market."
First, it said, "level the playing field for clean energy technologies. This means ensuring that energy prices reflect the 'true cost' of energy — accounting for the positive and negative impacts of energy production and consumption."
Secondly, it said, "unlock the potential of energy efficiency, the 'hidden fuel' of the future." This should be the first step of any policy aimed at building a sustainable energy mix, it said.
The agency's third recommendation is to accelerate energy innovation and public support for research, development and demonstration. "This will help lay the groundwork for private sector innovation, and speed technologies to market," it said.
