IEA Energy Snapshot

Energy Snapshot of the Week

A path, and challenge, to decarbonise the energy system

On May 12, the IEA released Energy Technology Perspectives 2014. Besides offering a comprehensive analysis of trends in the energy sector and of the technologies essential to an affordable, secure and low-carbon energy system, ETP 2014 features the annual IEA progress report on global efforts to engineer a clean energy transformation. It shows that while low-carbon technology deployment in emerging economies rallied over the past year, making up for declines in the industrialised world, the picture of progress remains bleak overall. 
This image shows the latest measurement of the IEA Energy Sector Carbon Intensity Index, as well as future pathways. The ESCII, which tracks global CO₂ emissions per unit of energy, shows that responses to the oil shocks of the 1970s made the energy supply 6% cleaner from 1971 to 1990. But the ESCII has remained essentially static since, despite climate policy commitments and the boom in renewable technologies. In 1990, the underlying carbon intensity of supply was 57.1 tonnes of CO₂ (tCO₂) per terajoule (TJ) (2.39 tCO₂ per tonne of oil equivalent [toe]); in 2011 it was 55.9 tCO₂/TJ (2.34 tCO₂/toe). This reflects the continued domination of fossil fuels – particularly coal – and the slow uptake of lower-carbon supply technologies.
The ESCII shows only one side of the decarbonisation challenge: the world must slow the growth of energy demand as well as make its energy supply cleaner. ETP 2014's main scenario demonstrates energy-sector actions needed to hold global warming to 2° C: aggressive energy efficiency improvements as well as a steep drop in the ESCII from its static trend, by 12% by 2025, and by 64% by 2050.