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115. More importantly, it will buy the time needed to mount major programmes on sustainable forms of renewable energy and so
begin the transition to a safer, more sustainable energy era. The development of renewable sources will depend in part on a
rational approach to energy pricing to secure a stable matrix for such progress. Both the routine practice of efficient energy use
and the development of renewables will help take pressure off traditional fuels, which are most needed to enable developing
countries to realize their growth potential worldwide.
116. Energy is not so much a single product as a mix of products and services, a mix upon which the welfare of individuals, the sustainable development of nations, and the life-supporting capabilities of the global ecosystem depend. In the past, this mix has been allowed to flow together haphazardly, the proportions dictated by short-term pressures on and short-term goals of governments, institutions, and companies. Energy is too important for its development to continue in such a random manner. A safe, environmentally sound, and economically viable energy pathway that will sustain human progress into the distant future is clearly imperative. It is also possible. But it will require new dimensions of political will and institutional cooperation to achieve it.
Footnotes
1/ World Bank, World Development Report 1986 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
2/ British Petroleum Company, BP Statistical Review of World Energy (London: 1986).
3/ 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).
4/ For a useful comparison of various scenarios, see J. Goldemberg et al., 'An End-Use Oriented Global Energy strategy', Annual Review of Energy, Vol. 10, 1985; and W. Keepin et al., 'Emissions of CO2 into the Atmosphere', in B. Bolin et al. (eds.), The Greenhouse Effect, Climate Change and Ecosystems (Chichester, UK: Jokn Wiley & Sons, 1986).
5/ U. Colombo and O. Bernadini, 'A Low Energy Growth Scenario and the Perspectives for Western Europe', Report for the Commission of the European Communities Panel on Low Energy Growth, 1979.
