A report issued by the International Energy Agency (IEA), said that $45 trillion might be needed over the next 50 years to combat energy shortages and greenhouse gas emissions from slowing economic growth. Nobuo Tanaka, the agency’s executive director, called for “immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale.”
Tanaka is also calling for a “new global energy revolution” to transform the way the world produces and uses energy.
The report from the IEA is sending strong warnings to consuming nations, especially China and India whose demand and use of energy is growing. The report warned of the dangers of climate change and said that the scarcity of resources is going to require huge shifts in the global economy.
Countries will have to overcome objections to building nuclear power plants and to storing large amounts of carbon dioxide underground or beneath the ocean floor.
In the report the IEA called for cutting emissions in half by 2050 and confirmed that environment ministers from the Group of 8 industrialized countries have backed the goal. It is expected that the G8 nations will endorse the goal at the next summit in July.
Tanaka also said that current policies are unsustainable with carbon dioxide emissions expected to see a rise of about 130% and oil consumption to rise 70% by 2050.
A second plan aimed at bringing emissions to half the current levels by mid-century, was mapped out in the report and emphasizes technologies and strategies for “weaning the world off oil.” The agency estimated the cost of that process at $45 trillion, or 1.1% of annual global output over the next 42 years, or $100-$200 billion every year for the next decade in investment before rising to $1 trillion to $2 trillion each year in the coming decades.
To reach the goal of halving emissions, the report said, among the most important measures would be equipping more than 50 gas and coal power plants each year with equipment to capture and sequester carbon dioxide. There would also be a need for 32 new nuclear plants each year, while the number of wind turbines would need to increase by 17,500 per year.
Other strategies included accelerating the development of solar electricity and so-called second-generation biofuels that do not compete with food for farmland.