Energyforum

“The EU has developed its scheme for carbon trading, and hopefully such schemes will also pop up in the US and Australia rather soon. But market measures won’t be enough. Governments must in addition support research & development and energy efficiency, two areas where the market won’t deliver, at least not as soon as necessary,” Cronshaw said.

The head of the IEA’s energy diversification division expressed a rather pessimistic view of the chances of combating climate change, stressing the enormous growth in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissisons from emerging economies China and India.

“Remember that the annual power production in China stands at 3,500 TWh. Next year alone it will grow by 350 TWh, three times the production of Norway,” he told the conference staged by the Norwegian electricity industry association.

The IEA believes China became the world’s largest emitter of CO2 last year, and the trend is unlikely to be curbed long as new coal fired power plants pop up almost every week with an energy efficiency often below 30 per cent.

“I sense an increasing realisation with China that the efficiency problem need to be addressed, but it not going fast and often the main reason is that coal reserves are declining,” he said.