What Hope for a Sustainable Energy System?

Abstract

Emissions reductions to achieve climate stabilisation require fundamental changes to the energy system — high energy efficiency and large scale use of renewable energy sources. It has been shown that these are technically possible and would not impose huge costs over a 60 year period. In evaluating the likelihood of this transition, technical progress and economics are far from the whole story. There is a long standing failure of all economies to achieve the levels of energy efficiency which are known to be economic. This is caused by non-economic barriers. Similar constraints apply to the use of renewable energy. The problems lie in the nature of the energy system developed in industrialised countries, with structures biased against investment in decentralised supplies and end use energy efficiency. There are signs that this is changing, but the transformation required is so substantial it calls for a fundamental change in social attitudes to energy. The climate problem could be a key element in producing such a change.