Financial crisis helps cut emissions 3%, says IEA

THE financial crisis could help cut emissions by 3% this year, opening a window of opportunity for world leaders to ink a new climate deal in Copenhagen, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on 6 October.
Many investments in polluting technologies were deferred in 2008-09, helping to cut carbon dioxide emission by 1.9 gigatonnes, or 3%, year-on-year, the steepest fall in 40 years, an IEA report said.
Segments of the report were released in Bangkok on the sidelines of United Nations climate talks aimed at finalizing a negotiating text for the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December. The full report will be officially released on 10 November in London. “Out of this 1.9 gigatonnes, around three-quarters was out of the financial crisis, and a quarter  was due to new policies between last and this year that some major countries put in place ,” said Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist.
The IEA added that the global recession has created a window of opportunity to redirect investments into into energy efficiency and non-carbon emitting technologies that could stabilize greenhouse-gas emissions at 450 parts per million (ppm) of CO2-equivalent, deemed sufficient to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2050. “This gives us a chance to make real progress towards a clean-energy future, but only if the right policies are put in place promptly,” IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said.
Tanaka called on world leaders to include a clear commitment to a 43% emission cut by 2020 in the Copenhagen deal, with lesser targets for developing countries, and also to commit to providing climate funds to encourage investment in nuclear and renewable energies. “If we cannot make a decision in Copenhagen, inaction will have a cost, and we have projected that that cost is about five hundred billion dollars every year,” Tanaka said.
He warned that a failure in Copenhagen to ink a new climate deal - replacing the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012 - could encourage more investment in polluting technologies that will make it more expensive to alter the trajectory later.
Investments of some $10 trillion are necessary in the energy sector between the years 2010 and 2030 to fight global warming, the IEA said. That amount would represent 0.5% of global gross domestic product in 2020 and 1.1% in 2030 and would achieve what the IEA describes as an “energy revolution”, the stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions at 450 parts per million. “The message is simple and stark. If the world continues on the basis of today’s energy and climate policies, the consequences of climate change will be severe,” Tanaka said. “Energy is at the heart of the problem, and so must form the core of the solution,” he said.