Publication - January 25, 2007
There is now growing awareness on the imperatives for a global energy future which marks a distinct departure from past trends and patterns of energy production and use.
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Executive summary: These imperatives emerge as much from the need to ensure energy security, as they do from the urgency of controlling local pollution from combustion of different fuels and, of course, the growing challenge of climate change, which requires reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases (GHSs), particularly carbon dioxide.
This publication provides stimulating analysis on future scenarios of energy use, which focus on a range of technologies that are expected to emerge in the coming years and decades. There is now universal recognition of the fact that new technologies and much greater use of some that already exist provide the most hopeful prospects for mitigation of emissions of GHGs. It is for this reason that the International Energy Agency, which in the past pursued an approach based on a single time path of energy demand and supply, has now developed alternative scenarios that incorporate future technological changes. In the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well, technology is included as a crosscutting theme in recognition of the fact that an assessment of technological options would be important both for mitigation as well as adaptation measures for tackling climate change. The scientific evidence on the need for urgent action on the problem of climate change has now become stronger and convincing. Future solutions would lie in the use of existing renewable energy technologies, greater efforts at energy efficiency and the dissemination of decentralized energy technologies and options.This particular publication provides much analysis and well-researched material to stimulate thinking on options that could be adopted in these areas. It is expected that readers who are knowledgeable in the field as well as those who are seeking an understanding of the subjects covered in the ensuing pages would greatly benefit from reading this publication.
Num. pages: 96