At a side event to the November Climate Change COP to launch the IEA's new World Energy Oulook 2006, IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil said the energy sector growth in CO₂ emissions is not destiny, but depends instead on policy choices. He pointed out that the annual global primary energy demand to be expected in 2030 can be reduced by about 10 percent, if governments actually implement all of the policies and measures currently under consideration. This is the result of comparing the WEO's 'Alternative Policy Scenario' with the 'Reference Scenario' which assumes business-as-usual.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the resulting CO₂ reductions would be far too low to substantially mitigate climate change. The policy measures assumed in the Alternative Policy Scenario projections are simply too modest to achieve sufficient emission reductions. In particular, the outlook for renewable energy was considered too cautions by several panellists and numerous participants.

Mr Mandil explained that the Alternative Policy Scenario is restricted to those future policies that are already in the pipeline today. That a much lower carbon energy would be economically and technically feasible is shown in IEA’s earlier publication Energy Technology Perspectives to 2050, in which IEA explored technical and economic energy futures - without political restrictions. The result is a higher share for renewable energy, particularly in the 'TECH plus' scenario, the most optimistic scenario for technology development.

Prompted by additional pressures on the climate, atmosphere and development, many experts believe that countries will develop and adopt more proactive policies than the ones currently considered and reflected in the Alternative Policy Scenario.

In this respect, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner stressed that markets are not simply given - they reflect a society’s choices that can change and adapt according to circumstances. He cited the cases of asbestos and ozone-depleting substances that were phased out after the dangers were known, and expressed confidence that high-carbon energy systems could follow that same path.

All speakers at the side event agreed that one crucial step towards achieving the urgently needed aggressive extension of renewable energies was to increase money spent on R&D, which today is pitifully low compared to subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power.

The potential for the 2050 TECH plus scenario was reinforced by Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace International who noted that over the last decade, even Greenpeace projections for renewable energy – more optimistic than IEA data – have proved too conservative compared to actual developments, as documented by the REN21 Global Status Report and other publications. He pleaded for strong policies to bring about a "way beyond alternative policy scenario".

Chairing the panel in Nairobi, Rajendra Pachauri of TERI Institute India, described Germany as a country that has actually implemented an alternative scenario, proving that this was is "not just a theoretical debate".

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel reconfirmed the German government target of a 20-25 percent renewable energy share in the electricity sector by 2020, and "zero percent nuclear", citing the reuptake of nuclear power to combat climate change as a choice between "plague or cholera". Using figures of the REN21 Global Status Report, he noted that while the nuclear debate was going on, the reality is an ever-increasing investment in renewable energy worldwide. Mr Gabriel noted that simply by achieving its 20 percent renewables share target by 2020, the EU could over-comply two-fold with its commitment under the Kyoto protocol.

Mogens Peter Carl, Director General for Environment, of the European Commission, hit the policy nail on the head when he referred to the ongoing negotiations at the climate conference on a post-2012 agreement, saying that "somebody has to be in the lead" and that the European Union strived for a very high proportion of renewable energy to mitigate climate change.

When IEA presented the WEO in Berlin on 20 November, REN21 Chair Mohamed El-Ashry summarized the discussions and offered a way forward on the basis of the consensus that policies are key. "By publishing the WEO and ETP, the IEA is providing valuable technical information for policy making for energy security, access to energy by the poor, and climate change. Both studies focus correctly on the opportunities presented through significant increases in energy efficiency and renewable energies for addressing these concerns." He added that, "it is surprising, however, that the WEO makes a rather conservative assessment of the potential role of renewables as compared to its sister study (ETP) that was released only a few months earlier. Ultimately though, it is government policies and investments that will determine the extent to which energy efficiency and renewable energies will contribute to a sustainable energy future."