The International Energy Agency (IEA) reduced its long-term forecast for global oil demand as the financial crisis continues to squeeze markets and countries increase their pursuit of alternative energy sources.

The news comes as global energy consumption is set to fall in 2009 for the first time since 1981 and CO2 emissions could shrink by as much as 3 percent - the steepest decline in the last 40 years.

According to the revised forecast contained in the IEA’s recently released annual World Energy Outlook, global oil consumption is now expected to expand 1 percent per year over the next two decades from 85 million barrels a day in 2008 to 105 million barrels a day in 2030. The projection falls below last year’s 2030 estimate of 106 million barrels per day and is significantly lower than the 120 million barrels per day forecasted by the IEA only a few years ago. Consumption may rise by as little as 0.2 percent per year, or 89 million barrels a day by 2030, if additional climate change policies are adopted.

Not surprisingly, global energy demand is expected to resume its upward trend once the economic crisis has ended. The report suggests that demand for coal will grow by 53 percent and demand for natural gas by 42 percent. Nearly 1.3 billion people, however, will still lack access to electricity in 2030.

The IEA’s forecasts are based on a reference scenario that assumes governments will make no changes to existing energy policies. A second “450 scenario” imagines a world in which collective policy action is taken to reduce the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million. That level would likely limit the anticipated rise in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, an objective that has gained widespread support around the world.

“The scale and breadth of the energy challenge is enormous-far greater than many people realize,” the agency warned in the executive summary of its report. “But it can and must be met.”

Without a change in policy, the IEA anticipates that global temperatures will rise 6 degrees Celsius over the next two decades, with disastrous consequences for the climate.

According to the IEA, progress largely depends on the climate summit next month in Copenhagen.

For additional information on the IAE’s World Energy Outlook 2009 and the “450 scenario”, please visit:

Fact Sheet:
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2009/fact_sheets_WEO_2009.pdf

Executive Summary:
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2009/WEO2009_es_english.pdf

Report to Press:
http://www.iea.org/speech/2009/Tanaka/WEO2009_Press_Conference.pdf

See also: http://www.350.org/

Photo: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/434372/

Copyright 2009 Amanda C. Becker