On June 10, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published the World Energy Outlook Special Report 2013, entitled "Redrawing the Energy Climate Map".

The report analyses the global CO2 emissions trend and reveals that the world is not on track to limit the global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. The current trend is more likely to result in a temperature increase between 3.6 °C and 5.3 °C instead.

At the same time the IEA stresses the fact that the energy sector accounts for nearly two-thirds of global greenhouse-gas emissions. Since the agreements on climate are currently at a standstill, it would be possible to start acting immediately on the energy sector in order to keep climate goals alive while international negotiations continue. In particular, the report suggests four energy policies that could be applied worldwide without harming economic growth:

_enforcing specific energy efficiency measures in buildings, industry and transport, which would account for nearly half the emissions reduction in 2020;
_limiting the use of the least efficient coal-fired power plants, with the additional benefit of improving local air quality;
_reducing the methane losses connected with from the upstream oil and gas industry;
_implementing a partial phase-out of fossil fuel consumption subsidies.

These policies presented by the new IEA report could lead to greenhouse-gas emissions 8% (3.1 Gt CO2-equivalent) lower in 2020 than the level otherwise expected.

The suggested actions have been selected among those more likely to deliver significant emissions reductions by 2020, relying only on existing technologies and already being successfully adopted in several countries.

The report also demonstrates that the energy sector, in its own interest, needs to address now the many risks implicit in climate change in order to avoid higher costs later, as the need to curb emissions becomes imperative.

For more information and to download the free report in pdf please visit the IEA website