The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released a special report as part of its World Energy Outlook, recommending urgent measures to tackle climate change and CO2 emissions. Current CO2 emissions trends point to a long-term temperature increase of up to 5.3 °C, far above the 2°C target.
The IEA identifies four key criteria for measures to be adopted by 2020 (Significant near-term emissions reductions, no harm to countries’ economic growth, reliance only on existing technologies and proven policies and significant national benefits other than climate change mitigation).
Four measures could stop the growth in emissions by 2020 at no net economic cost, reducing emissions by 3.1 Gt, 80% of the savings required for a 2 °C path :
- implementing selected energy efficiency policies (48% of the planned emission cut, i.e. 1.5 Gt, especially in the building sector, but also in industrial motors and in road transport),
- limiting the use of inefficient coal-fired power plants (21%, mainly in China and in the US),
- reducing CH4 releases from upstream oil and gas operations (18%, mainly in non-OECD economies, in the Middle East and in Russia), i.e. 1.1 Gt and
- removing fossil-fuel subsidies (12%, especially in the Middle East and in Africa), i.e. 360 Mt.
Interested in Global Energy Research?
Enerdata's premium online information service provides up-to-date market reports on 110+ countries. The reports include valuable market data and analysis as well as a daily newsfeed, curated by our energy analysts, on the oil, gas, coal and power markets.
This user-friendly tool gives you the essentials about the domestic markets of your concern, including market structure, organisation, actors, projects and business perspectives.