Tag Archives: World Energy Outlook

Concerted, determined action is needed in order to realize the aims of the UN Secretary General's "Sustainable Energy for All" initiative. Despite increasing deployment of renewable energy systems, gains in energy efficiency and greater access to electricity and modern energy services, billions more needs to be invested annually if global society is to continue to improve living standards and conditions while avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

Global climate is on track for changes including a greater than 2°C rise in average temperature, and that's going to result in adaptation costs for developing countries well above the World Bank's 2°C estimate of $70 billion by 2020 and as much as $100 billion per year by 2050, according to a report produced by ActionAid, Care, GermanWatch and WWF, which in a report introduced at the Bonn Climate Change Conference urge government leaders to adopt a set of policies to scale up and accelerate climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

In a world that must reduce its dependency on fossil fuels, replacing oil subsidies with renewable energy subsidies makes sense. Although this is undeniably difficult, it would produce both environmental and economic benefits. Putting an end to oil subsidies would free public money that could be used to promote clean energy and make renewables more competitive. Although renewable energy is destined to increase it will not grow fast …

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released estimates on Monday showing that CO2 emissions have soared to record highs after a lull in 2009 due to the global recession. 30.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide where emitted into the atmosphere in 2010, mostly from burning fossil fuels, a rise of 1.6 gigatons over 2009 according to estimates from the IEA, and up 5 percent over 2008 …