Extra $45 trillion needed to cut emissions - IEA

THE INTERNATIONAL Energy Agency (IEA) has said the world needs $45 trillion (€28.5 trillion) in additional investment to develop clean technologies in a bid to cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by half before mid-century.

Carbon dioxide emissions will rise by 130 per cent and oil demand by 70 per cent by 2050 if governments do not change their policies, IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka said yesterday.

The investment equals 1.1 per cent of projected global gross domestic product in the period.

The main international energy adviser for the US, Britain and 25 other nations said inaction would boost the average global temperature by six degrees Celsius, citing UN scientific studies. The result would be a "significant change in all aspects of life and irreversible change in the natural environment", according to the report.

The IEA estimates are meant to guide the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations' efforts to develop clean technologies such as fuel-cell devices and wind turbines. Mr Tanaka will join a meeting of G8 energy ministers starting tomorrow in Japan's northern prefecture of Aomori.

"A global energy technology revolution is both necessary and achievable, but it will be a tough challenge," he said. "The world faces the daunting combination of surging energy demand, rising greenhouse gas emissions and tightening resources."

The world needs to build 32 nuclear power plants and 17,500 wind-power turbines each year to halve emissions by 2050, according to the Paris-based energy adviser. G8 environment ministers last month pledged to achieve such a reduction.

France, Europe's biggest nuclear power, has 58 reactors.

The IEA said increased use of nuclear power, the development of renewable energy sources, such as solar power, and carbon capture were vital to reducing emissions. Carbon capture is a technology in which carbon dioxide emissions are caught in the air and stored underground.

Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda has proposed that world leaders step up efforts to develop clean technologies by 2030 to meet emissions-reduction targets to be set in a new climate treaty that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol. - (Bloomberg)