How We Can Decrease the Projected Global Energy Demand for 2020

(Page 3 of 3)

July 2008
By Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute 
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Overall, investing in energy efficiency to offset increasing energy demand is often cheaper than expanding the energy supply to meet that demand. Efficiency investments typically yield a high rate of return and can help fight climate change by avoiding additional CO2 emissions.

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In stark contrast to the International Energy Agency’s projected 30 percent growth in demand, realizing the Plan B efficiency measures alone would lead to a 6 percent decline in global primary energy demand from 2006 levels by 2020. Beyond these productivity gains, because producing power from fossil fuels generates large amounts of waste heat (and wasted heat equals wasted energy), shifting from fossil fuels to renewables — another key step toward stabilizing climate — would further reduce primary energy demand in the Plan B energy economy.

For more information on the Earth Policy Institute's plan to decrease global energy demand by 2020, see chapter 11 in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, avaliable for free download at EarthPolicy.org.

Also see Time for Plan B: Cutting Carbon Emissions 80 Percent by 2020 (pdf).

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Copyright © 2008 Earth Policy Institute.

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