Global Energy: Issues, Potentials, and Policy Implications

Energy, and access to energy, are essential to human life, civilisation and development. A number of energy issues - including energy security, energy prices and the polluting emissions for energy use - now have high prominence on global agendas of policy and diplomacy. In addressing these and other global energy issues, the purpose of this book is to lay out the broad global energy landscape, exploring how these issues might develop in coming decades, and the implications of such developments for energy policy. There are great uncertainties, which will be identified, in respect of some of these issues, but many of the defining characteristics of the landscape are clear, and the energy policies of all countries will need to be broadly consistent with these if they are to be feasible and achieve their objectives. The book therefore provides information about and analysis of energy and related resources, and the technologies that have been and are being developed to exploit them that is essential to understanding how the global energy system is developing, and how it might develop in the future. But its main focus is the critical economic, social, political and cultural issues that will determine how energy systems will develop and which technologies are deployed, why, by whom, and who will benefit from them. The book has three Parts. Part I sets out the current global context for energy system developments, outlining the essential trends of global energy supply and demand, and atmospheric emissions, from the past and going forward, and their driving forces. Part II explores the options and choices, covering both energy demand and energy supply, facing national and international policymakers as they confront the challenges of the global context outlined in Part I. Part III of the book brings together the discussion in Parts I and II with consideration of possible global energy and environmental futures, and of the energy policy choices which will determine which future actually comes to pass. Contributors to this volume - George A. Aggidis, Lancaster University Gabrial Anandarajah, UCL Energy Institute Melanie Austen, Plymouth Marine Laboratory John Barrett, University of Leeds Francoise Bartiaux, Universite catholique de Louvain Ausilio Bauen, Imperial College London Nicola Beaumont, Plymouth Marine Laboratory Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School Gavin Bridge, Durham University Chiara Candelise, Imperial College London and Bocconi University Murtala Chindo Hannah Daly, UCL Energy Institute Joanna Depledge, Cambridge University Olivier Dessens, UCL Energy Institute Trudie Dockerty, University of East Anglia Paul E. Dodds, UCL Energy Institute Joseph Dutton, Argus Media Paul Ekin, UCL Energy Institute Antony Evans, UCL Energy Institute Birgit Fais, UCL Energy Institute Laura Finlay Antony Froggatt, Chatham House and Exeter University Robert Holland, University of Southampton Kathryn Janda, Oxford University Henry Jeffrey Cameron Jones, University of Sussex Karg Kama, Oxford University Florian Kern, University of Sussex Markku Lehtonen, University of Sussex Xavier Lemaire, UCL Energy Institute Andrew Lovett, University of East Anglia Will McDowall, UCL Energy Institute Andy MacGillivray, University of Edinburgh Christophe McGlade, UCL Energy Institute Mari Martiskainen, University of Sussex Catherine Mitchell, University of Exeter Mithra Moezzi, Portland State University Anne Owen, University of Leeds Eleni Papathanasopoulou, Plymouth Marine Laboratory Katy Roelich, University of Leeds Kate Scott, University of Leeds Jim Skea, Imperial College London Jamie Speirs, Imperial College Raphael Slade, Imperial College London Andrew ZP Smith, UCL Energy Institute Pete Smith, University of Aberdeen Tristan Smith, UCL Energy Institute Gilla Sunnenberg, University of East Anglia Gail Taylor Xinxin Wang, Haymarket Business Media Jim Watson, UKERC and University of Sussex Tina Wegg Charlie Wilson, University of East Anglia