IEA World Energy Outlook 2010—A comment

The World Energy Outlook 2010 is a comprehensive energy report issued by the IEA. It is rewritten annually to reflect the world's changing energy and economy realities; it also introduces new issues relevant to the energy sector. This year it dealt with Caspian Energy, Energy Poverty and Energy Subsidies. WEO is controversial in few aspects; it still promotes a 450 Scenario which has become out of reach. This year however it introduced a more realistic New Policies Scenario which will need a lot of good will and investments to accomplish. Governmental policies are going to chart future energy sector performance; increasingly this is becoming decided by non-OECD countries. A more pragmatic future energy outlook is needed to reflect developing countries priorities for growth and utilization of local resources and how to accommodate this with abatement priorities through energy efficiency measures and technologies.

Research highlights► We critically review the findings of the IEA – World Energy Outlook 2010. ► The main “450 Scenario” is no longer realistic. ► Some of the other indicators like the Energy Development Index are also critically reviewed and improvements proposed.