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5. The period ahead must be regarded as transitional from an era in which energy has been used in an unsustainable manner. A generally acceptable athway to a safe and sustainable energy future has not yet been found. We do not believe that these dilemmas have yet been addressed by the international community with a sufficient sense of urgency and in a global perspective.
Ⅰ. ENERGY, ECONOMY, AND ENVIRONMENT
6. The growth of energy demand in response to industrialization, urbanization, and societal affluence has led to an extremely uneven global distribution of primary energy consumption.[1] The consumption of energy per person in industrial market economies, for example, is more than 80 times greater than in sub-Saharan Africa. (See Table 7-1.) And about a quarter of the world's population consumes three-quarters of the world's primary energy.
7. In 1980, global energy consumption stood at around 10 TW.[2] (See Box 7-1.) If per capita use remained at the same levels as today, by 2025 a global population of 8.2 billion[3] would need about 14 TW (over 4 TW in developing and over 9 TW in industrial countries) - an increase of 40 per cent over 1980. But if energy consumption per head became uniform worldwide at current industrial country levels, by 2025 that same global population would require about 55 TW.
8. Neither the 'low' nor the 'high' figure is likely to prove realistic, but they give a rough idea of the range within which energy futures could move, at least hypothetically, any other scenarios can be generated in-between, some of which assume an improved enerqy base for the developing world. For instance, if the average enerqy consumption in the low- and middle-income economies trebled and doubled, respectively, and if consumption in the high-income oil-exporting and industrial market and non-market countries remained the same as today, then the two groups would be consuming about the same amounts of energy. The low- and middle-income categories would need 10.5 TW and the three 'high' categories would use 9.3 TW - totalling 20 TW globally, assuming that primary energy is used at the same levels of efficiency as today.
BOX 7.1
Energy Units
A variety of units are used to measure energy production and use in physical terms. This chapter uses the kilowatt (kW); the Gigawatt (GW), which is equal to 1 million kW; and the Terawatt (TW), which is equal to 1 billion kilowatts. One kilowatt – a thousand watts of energy - if emitted continuously for a year is 1kW year. Consuming 1 kW year/year is equivalent to the energy liberated by burning 1,050 kilogrammes – approximately 1 ton – of coal annually. Thus a TW year is equal to approximately 1 billion tons of coal. Throughout the chapter, TW years/year is written as TW.
- ↑ World Bank, World Development Report 1986 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
- ↑ British Petroleum Company, BP Statistical Review of World Energy (London: 1986).
- ↑ Medium variant in Department of International Economic and Social Affairs. World Population Prospects as Assessed in 1980, Population Studies No. 78 (Annex), and Long Range Population Projections of the World and Major Regions 2025-2150, Five Variants as Assessed in 1980 (New York: UN, 1981).
