International Energy Agency report calls for urgent action on climate change

The International Energy Agency (IEA) on Monday published its latest report which called for urgent action by the global community to keep it on track to limit a temperature increase 2 degrees celsius. "Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities. But the problem is not going away, quite the opposite," said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven at the launch of 'Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map', the latest IEA World Energy Outlook special report in London. The IEA report says that current global action is not yet sufficient to achieve the temperature goals of limiting increase to 2 degrees celsius from the temperature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The report noted that the energy sector accounted for around two thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. Van der Hoeven said, "Much more can be done to tackle energy-sector emissions without jeopardizing economic growth, an important concern for many governments." The report called for four key actions to hit the 2 degrees celsius target -- a 4-for-2 strategy -- accelerating the (partial) phase out of subsidies to fossil fuel consumption; adopting a broad range of specific energy efficiency measures; limiting the construction and use of the least efficient coal-fired power plants; and minimising methane gas emissions from upstream oil and gas production. If the recommendations in the report are followed, IEA claims that global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 8 percent by 2020. Report author Dr Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, said, "We identify a set of proven measures that could stop the growth in global energy-related emissions by the end of this decade at no economic cost. Rapid and widespread adoption could act as a bridge to further action, buying precious time while international climate negotiations continue."