PARIS, France, May 30, 2007.
Developed countries need to accelerate development and deployment of new energy technologies, concludes the biennial meeting of energy ministers from 26 countries of the International Energy Association.
“For a sustainable energy future, we need to accelerate the development and deployment of new technologies,” explains the final communique. “We will work urgently to bring this about.”
“We will enhance our programmes for the deployment of renewables and, subject to national policies, nuclear power, to cope with the emerging threat of global warming,” it explains. “We will encourage the strengthening of our R&D efforts to reduce the costs of new technologies such as advanced biofuels, solar, hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles.”
It also calls for promotion of clean coal and progress on the full-scale demonstration and early deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage, while “paying due regard to regulatory and safety issues,” it adds. “And we will enhance our energy technology collaboration with major emerging economies, bilaterally and through the IEA’s technology network.”
The meeting was led by energy minister Odd Roger Enoksen of Norway, and included accession country Slovak Republic, candidate country Poland, and the European Commission. Other topics discussed in the closed meeting were dealing with short-term risks to energy security, improving longer term energy security, the crucial role for energy efficiency, and technologies for a sustainable energy future.
The ministers met to review the state of global energy markets and to provide guidance to the IEA on energy policy analysis and energy crisis management. Since their last meeting in 2005, “the world has confronted even greater energy challenges: energy prices remain high and volatile and are a particularly heavy burden for the economies of less-developed countries; geopolitical risks are mounting; investment costs are soaring; capital spending is falling short of what is needed to ensure secure supply; and CO2 emissions are growing even more rapidly.”
The 2005 communique asked the IEA for “strategies to help bridge the gap between what is happening and what needs to be done for a sustainable and secure energy future” and, since then, the IEA has identified many elements of a more sustainable path which requires cost-effective strategies in national policies and practices. The G8 summit in St Petersburg made recommendations on energy efficiency and “we now strongly welcome and consider implementing as soon as possible, according to national circumstances, the further recommendations on improving energy efficiency that the IEA has prepared as part of the programme supporting the G8 Gleneagles Plan Of Action, such as energy efficiency standards for new buildings, fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, and mandatory appliance standards.”
“We call on the IEA to promote the development of efficiency goals and action plans at all levels of government, making use of sector-specific benchmarking tools to bring energy efficiency to best practice levels across the globe,” it explains. “We invite the IEA to evaluate and report on the energy efficiency progress in IEA member and key non-member countries. We also call on the IEA to continue to work towards identifying truly sustainable scenarios and on identifying least-cost policy solutions for combating energy-related climate change.”
“Achieving security and sustainability will require hard decisions by all nations,” the ministers agreed. “Collectively, we will need to draw on all energy sources, origins, suppliers and routes to markets. We remain committed to being guided by market principles but markets need more transparent, stable and predictable regulatory frameworks to boost investment as well as better data for timely investment. All countries must accept the responsibility of creating such conditions. The indivisibility of security and sustainability must guide each and every aspect of our work.”
“Our key message today is about motivation and implementation,” it concludes. “We need to respond to the twin energy-related challenges we confront: ensuring secure, affordable energy for more of the world’s population, and managing in a sustainable manner the environmental consequences of producing, transforming and using that energy.”
“These challenges are not insurmountable; the world can achieve a clean, clever and competitive energy future,” it notes. “To do so everyone will have to assume greater responsibility in all their activities, basing all of our energy decisions on best practices. We recognise that with every delay, the challenges become that much greater.”
