IEA sounds 'wake-up call' on energy savings[fr][de] 

The report, Energy Use in the New Millennium, was published on 10 September as the IEA's contribution to the 3rd ministerial meeting of the G8 Gleneagles dialogue on climate change and energy currently taking place in Berlin.

It draws a gloomy picture of efforts made by the 26 IEA member countries to control their energy consumption since 1990, the reference year of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

"Final energy-use increased by 14% between 1990 and 2004," the Paris-based agency states in the report. "This increased energy-use fed directly into the level of CO2 emissions, which also rose by 14%."

Moreover, it says the rate of energy-savings improvements has actually slowed down since the 1970s and the first oil shock, falling at "less than 1% per year" since 1990, a level which it said is about half what it was in previous decades. "Had the earlier rate been sustained, there would have been almost no increase in energy consumption in the IEA," the agency said.

"These findings confirm the conclusions of previous IEA analyses – that the changes caused by the oil-price shocks in the 1970s and the resulting energy policies did considerably more to control growth in energy demand and reduce CO2 emissions than the energy efficiency and climate policies implemented since the 1990s."

"The results are a 'wake-up call' for us all," the IEA said.

At EU level, the Commission has made energy savings one of its key priorities. In an action plan endorsed by the 27 heads of state and governments in March 2007, Europe has agreed to cut its energy consumption by 20% by 2020.

"The good news is that there is still substantial scope for cost-effective energy efficiency improvements in buildings, appliances, industry and transport," said Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, presenting the report at the G8 meeting in Berlin. "The bad news is we need to move much faster in realising this potential."