"This future is not sustainable" is a great way to grab attention. When it comes in a substantial report from the OECD's International Energy Agency (IEA), you really do have to take notice. That report, Transport, Energy And CO2, goes through the usual numbers: transport accounts for about 19 per cent of global energy use and 23 per cent of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. And unless something drastic happens there will be a 50 per cent increase in transport energy use and CO2 emissions. By 2050 the increase could be more than 80 per cent.
The report's real value is not the scary numbers and gloomy warnings, but the alternative visions it offers of how the future could pan out if we changed our ways. It does this through a set of scenarios that can focus our attention on what matters, and where action could be most effective.
Scenarios can add weight to bland exhortations and statements of the blindingly obvious, such as that in another recent report, Transport Outlook 2010, published by the International Transport Forum. The subtitle of this document may be "The Potential For Innovation" but statements like "Innovation is the key to managing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions from transport" will not persuade governments to act, let alone businesses.
The IEA's report does not make it easy to unravel its scenarios, thanks to its use of such baffling names as BLUE Map, BLUE EV Success and BLUE Shifts. Does BLUE stand for anything? It seems not, even if you go back to the source of the scenarios, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050. That origin shows another value of scenarios, they are portable. Scenarios designed to prompt thinking about energy futures can also help us to think about transport futures.
Scenarios draw on inputs from many sources and usually depend on rigorous processes that rule out 'science fiction'. The IEA's scenarios certainly contain more meat than those that the EU cooked up last year (A focus on the future, IET Commentary).
It is hard to credit, but the 'BLUE Map' scenario in the IEA's report "achieves CO2 emissions by 2050 that are 30 per cent below 2005 levels". The journey to this future goes via "strong improvements in vehicle efficiency and introduction of advanced technologies and fuels such as plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles".
Another advantage of scenarios is that they can show that even if we travel along different technological routes we can reach the same destinations. For example, the BLUE EV Success scenario is one with "electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles achieving greater cost reductions and better performance to the point where they dominate light-duty vehicle sales by 2050, to the exclusion of fuel cell vehicles".
A further value of substantial scenarios like the IEA's is that other players – in the transport business, or any other sector – can use them in their own attempts to look into the future. This really is a case of do try this at home.
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