Energy Supply and Demand

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is an "autonomous organisation which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 28 member countries and beyond. Founded in response to the 1973/4 oil crisis, the IEA’s initial role was to help countries co-ordinate a collective response to major disruptions in oil supply through the release of emergency oil stocks to the markets. While this continues to be a key aspect of its work, the IEA has evolved and expanded. It is at the heart of global dialogue on energy, providing authoritative and unbiased research, statistics, analysis and recommendations."

October 15, 2009: Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General, Dr. Henry Kissinger and Nobuo Tanaka, IEA Executive Director at the 35th Anniversary of the IEA. Location: Chateau de La Muette, Paris.

Credit: 35th Anniversary of the International Energy Agency (IEA) / OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Launched in June 2006, Energy Technology Perspectives is the IEA's leading biennial publication. The series is a response to a request from the G8 in 2005 for guidance on how to achieve a clean, clever and competitive energy future and how to achieve a 50% reduction in global CO2 emissions by 2050.

Energy Technology Perspectives uses scenarios to evaluate technology and emissions outcomes. The Baseline scenario illustrates what is likely to happen if no new action is taken through the energy system to address climate change and energy security concerns. The Blue scenarios explore what needs to be done to reduce CO2 emissions to one half of their 2005 levels by 2050. There are several different variations of the Blue scenario (described in Energy Technology Perspectives 2010, Chapter 2, "Overview of Scenarios," if you'd like additional information.)