IEA says energy-climate crisis is opportunity for major change

Oil prices are too high and threaten the global economy but also open the way to huge energy and pollution savings by spurring new technologies and policies, the IEA said on Wednesday.

“High energy prices provide an unforeseen opportunity to set a new course,” the IEA said, estimating the cumulative cost of cutting carbon emissions by half by 2050 at 45 trillion dollars or about 1.1 percent of annual production in the global economy.
Oil prices were “too high and a threat to the global economy and social welfare of millions of people, particularly in developing countries.”

The IEA published 25 recommendations on energy efficiency it had submitted to the G8 summit in Japan, what it said was “a win-win strategy” in providing clean and secure energy alongside adequate stimulus to economic growth.

Welcoming calls at the G8 summit for improved energy efficiency and development of technologies to reduce carbon emissions, IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka said in a statement: “We are very pleased that G8 leaders are so engaged in finding and implementing these policies.”

Tanaka said that if the proposals were put into effect globally and immediately, savings in carbon emissions by 2030 would be equivalent to twice the emissions by European members of the OECD in 2005.

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