National Academies: A call for global energy efficiency

We call on all countries of the world to cooperate in identifying common strategic objectives for sustainable, efficient and climate friendly energy systems, and in implementing actions toward them

Our present energy course is not sustainable. World population is forecast to reach 9 billion by 2050, with the most rapid growth in the poorest countries. Escalating pressures on land will accelerate deforestation. Major increases in demand for energy are inevitable as economies around the world accelerate and peoples justifiably seek to improve their living standards.
Responding to this demand while minimising further climate change will need all the determination and ingenuity we can muster. The problem is not yet insoluble, but becomes more difficult with each passing day. A goal of confining global warming to an average of 2 centigrade degrees above pre-industrial levels would be very challenging, and even this amount of warming would be likely to have some severe impacts.

Many of the world’s poorest people, who lack the resources to respond to the impacts of climate change, are likely to suffer the most. The dilemma, however, is that climate protection goals appear to conflict with prosperity targets within the traditional development paradigm.

Access to energy resources and affordability of energy services are key factors for the wealth of nations and the well being of their people. Last year our academies addressed a further important aspect of the challenges related to energy: the implications for security. We noted then that a key strategic priority will be a diversification of energy sources, as a way to address the wide variety of circumstances and resources, and to decrease vulnerabilities to a wide range of possible disruptions in supply.

Major investments and successful technological and institutional innovation will be needed to achieve better energy efficiency, low- or zero-carbon energy sources and carbon-removing schemes. A clear area for increased investment is energy conservation and efficiency. This has immediate and long-term benefits for local and regional health and environment, security of energy services and climate change, while having potential for local economic development and build-up of local technological capabilities.

Against this background it will be necessary to develop and deploy new sources and systems for energy supply, including clean use of coal, carbon capture and storage, unconventional fossil fuel resources, advanced nuclear systems, advanced renewable energy systems (including solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energy), smart grids and energy storage technologies. Research focused on the energy field must be enlarged significantly. The InterAcademy Council (IAC) is preparing a report on these challenges, which will be available later this year.

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