IEA says efficient energy practices could slow growth
WASHINGTON — The global economy could double over the next two decades with only a marginal increase in energy demand if industry adopted a more efficient use of energy supplies, the International Energy Agency said in a new report.
“Energy efficiency alone could cause greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2020, a key target of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol wrote in the report. “While energy efficiency is improving, its impact on global energy use is being overwhelmed by increasing economic activity across all sectors.”
The report offers a potential path for governments as they seek to drastically decrease carbon dioxide emissions to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change. But it also offers a potentially difficult path forward for oil companies, which are banking on a growing population to drive up energy demand in the decades ahead.
European oil giant BP forecast earlier this year that energy demand would grow by one-third over the next two decades, short drastic action by world
governments such as a ban on internal combustion engines. So far, governments worldwide have been slow to implement the regulatory changes to meet the Paris agreement.
Last year global energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions increased, a break from a recent decline in those areas, according to the IEA report. Driving that shift in part is a slowdown in global investment in energy efficiency technology, particularly in China and the United States, where investment decreased .
“This under-investment has become glaringly apparent with the Trump administration’s shortsighted moves to roll back or slow down efficiency initiatives, even though efficiency has long enjoyed bipartisan support and has a proven record of success in cutting pollution and saving consumers money,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement Thursday.