Press Quotes

11 November 2009, The Guardian
Rich countries are being urged to sign up to a Make Poverty History-style pledge at the climate change summit at Copenhagen next month to bring electricity to the 1.5 billion people in the world without it. The IEA predicted that without international action by governments, there would still be 1.3 billion people – or 16% of the world's population – with no access to electricity in their homes or villages by 2030.. The IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, told the Energy firms have no incentive to build power plants or connect remote areas to the grid if people are too poor to pay the bills. "It's not likely to happen unless there's a major international concerted effort by rich countries," Birol said. "We will start to push it on to the main agenda at Copenhagen."

11 November 2009, Finfacts Ireland
In its annual World Energy Outlook report released on Tuesday, International Energy Agency also warns that the world’s use of fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – will have to peak by the early 2020s. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, argues the world needs a “revolution” in the energy and vehicle industries. “We need a deal in Copenhagen. We need a signal for the energy industry. Without that, nothing will move,” he said.

11 November 2009, Le Figaro, France
The drop in energy investments due to the financial and economic crisis, explains Fatih Birol the Chief Economist of the IEA, is bad news because once the demand for oil surges along with the global economic revival, and if oil production does not keep pace, we risk seeing again volatility in prices and this does not bode well for economic recovery.

11 November 2009, The Times
In its 2009 World Energy Outlook, the IEA said that the surplus in global supplies could hit 200 billion cubic metres per year by 2015. IEA’s Chief Economist Fatih Birol said that the glut was emerging because of slumping global energy demand amid the recession and booming American production of gas from “unconventional sources”, so-called “tight gas” and “shale gas”. New technology that uses hydraulic pressure to blast previously unreachable gas out of rock formations was driving a “silent revolution” in the US energy market, with “far-reaching implications” for the rest of the world. “This is a gamechanger that will put downward pressure on spot prices,” he said.

11 November 2009, The Independent
The world's energy systems will need an extra $10.5 trillion in investment between now and 2030 to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and avoid "irreparable damage to the planet" the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned during World Energy Outlook 2009 presentation. In the run-up to next month's climate summit in Copenhagen, the IEA's annual global outlook outlined parallel forecasts – one based on the current trajectory of global energy consumption, the other a lower-carbon model requiring major international policy co-ordination.

11 November 2009, Reuters, Italy
The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday during the World Energy Outlook 2009 launch.

11 November 2009, China Business News Daily
IEA says China alone will contribute to 1Gt reduction in CO2 in 2020. In its just released World Energy Outlook 2009, IEA projects that between 2007 and 2030, global energy demand will grow at 1.5% per year and increase by 40% which is slower than last year’s projection.

11 November 2009, Xinhua News Agency, China
The International Energy Agency Energy (IEA) urged worldwide energy revolution and called for more funds to tackle the crisis of climate change in its World Energy Outlook 2009 report published on Tuesday. According to the WEO 2009, due to the violent contraction of the global economy following the financial crisis, industrial production is estimated to consume less energy worldwide this year, which will be the first fall since 1981.But the report warns that big demand for energy will come back as soon as the economy rebounds, forecasting a 40 percent increase in energy demand in 2030.

11 November 2009, The Times
The world is facing a bill of $500 billion for every year that it delays in reaching a global deal on climate change, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Tuesday 10 November at the launch of World energy Outlook 2009, the IEA’s flagship publication. Fatih Birol, chief economist with the IEA, told The Times that the annual cost of inaction — roughly equivalent to the annual GDP of Switzerland — would result from a steady build-up of additional concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as the burning of fossil fuels accelerates. “We need to make a major transition,” he said, “But this will only happen if we get a global agreement as soon as possible.”

10 November 2009, PulsBiznesu, Poland
The chief economist of the IEA, Dr. Fatih Birol, said that without a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol, the average annual import bill of the European Union will more than double by 2030 to reach around $500 billion on average over the period 2008-2030 from around $160 billion on average over the past 30 years.