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This volume describes more than 400 separate policy actions that IEA Member countries took to mitigate climate change in the energy sector during 1999. Listings are provided for each country with classifications of actions into five major policy approaches: fiscal policy; market policy; regulatory policy; R&D policy; and policy processes. In addition, policies are classified according to energy source and end-use.
This volume details more than 200 new policies and measures that were taken in the year 2000 to address energy-related emissions in IEA member countries. Actions are listed for each of the 26 IEA Member countries under five major headings: fiscal policy, tradable permits, regulatory instruments and voluntary approaches, R&D policy, and policy processes. In addition, policies are classified according to energy source and end-use. The volume’s introductory analysis puts current national activities into context. It provides an overview of current emissions and emissions-related policy trends, and also reviews other energy policy initiatives, including those in energy taxation, that have an effect on overall emissions and energy paths. The conclusion is that, while considerable action is being taken, more needs to be done.
In 2001 the 26 IEA Member countries took or planned over 200 energy-related policies and measures to tackle climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. This volume reviews the actions taken and describes them in detail. It shows how developed countries implement the commitments made under international agreements or at national level to reduce their emissions. The policies have been classified under six major headings: fiscal polices, tradable permits, regulatory instruments, voluntary agreements, R&D policies and policy processes. The introductory analysis provides an overview and assessment of recent policy trends.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Institute of Energy Economic, Japan (IEEJ) have developed and published long-term decarbonisation pathways for Southeast Asia and Indonesia. This report provides a comparison of modelling approaches, quantitative drivers, and results from the IEA and IEEJ pathways, highlighting areas of agreement, as well as identifying and explaining differences, and thereby to derive implications.
Accounting for nearly 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions and sometimes as much as 70% in large cities, buildings and construction are central to the low-carbon transition. Decarbonising buildings, especially the old stock, through energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy use, not only reduces carbon emissions, but also generates co-benefits in health, energy affordability and the labour market. Additionally, global mega-trends and the transition to a green recovery from COVID-19 provide impetus for stakeholders to take action. Cities and regions have a key role to play and can leverage prerogatives in regulation, public procurement and stakeholder engagement, while addressing multiple governance, capacity and funding gaps. To accelerate and scale up their action, cities and regions need to work with national governments to create an effective governance mechanism. Drawing on the findings of a dedicated survey of cities and regions of all sizes from both OECD and non-OECD countries, this report explains their significant role, explores sub-national policy measures, identifies key obstacles, and provides policy recommendations and a checklist for both national and subnational governments to drive the decarbonisation of buildings in cities and regions.
As behavioural insights (BI) become more widely used, countries are looking to expand the application of the methodology to new frontiers of policy making. This report tests behaviourally informed solutions to complex policy problems in the fields of competition, consumer protection, energy consumption and safety through a variety of theoretical and experimental approaches. The results give policy makers new ideas for tackling policy problems related to individual behaviour, as well as for changing the behaviour of organisations.
In spite of progress made to date and the significant long-term ambition announced by many countries, climate policy actions remain insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. While several international initiatives aim to track and monitor climate policies, there is not yet a “go to” place for a comprehensive inventory of policy actions and best practices worldwide. Such a platform would also ideally serve to compare policies’ effectiveness reflecting the diversity of country circumstances. Progress in this direction would help to promote an ambitious but globally more coherent and better-coordinated approach to emission reductions through a broad range of policies. This report lays out a roadmap for data and analytical work to support this aim, with a view to enhancing global dialogue and building trust on issues spanning climate change mitigation policies and their macro-economic repercussions. Key elements to strengthen the assessment and comparison of countries’ climate change mitigation policies across countries include: broadening and deepening the stocktaking of mitigation policies; extending and agreeing on an operational methodology for estimating the impact of these policies on emissions and on potential metrics to compare them; and assessing the broader economic effects of different climate policies.
Bioenergy is the main source of renewable energy today. IEA modelling also indicates that modern bioenergy is an essential component of the future low carbon global energy system if global climate change commitments are to be met, playing a particularly important role in helping to decarbonise sectors such as aviation, shipping and long haul road transport.
However, the current rate of bioenergy deployment is well below the levels required in low carbon scenarios. Accelerated deployment is urgently needed to ramp up the contribution of sustainable bioenergy across all sectors, notably in the transport sector where consumption is required to triple by 2030. But bioenergy is a complex and sometimes controversial topic. There is an increasing understanding that only bioenergy that is supplied and used in a sustainable manner has a place in a low carbon energy future.
This Technology Roadmap re-examines the role of bioenergy in light of changes to the energy landscape over the past five years as well as recent experience in bioenergy policy, market development and regulation. It identifies the technical, policy and financial barriers to deployment, and suggests a range of solutions to overcome them.
Energy efficiency indicators are key to tracking energy efficiency progress for a variety of purposes (e.g. policy making, monitoring targets, making energy projections, developing scenarios and planning, and benchmarking). This guide is for professionals and decision makers, describing options and good practices for the collection of energy end-use data and the development of energy efficiency indicators at the national level. In parallel, it can also be used as an assessment tool, helping countries/economies to locate their starting point, and to identify appropriate targets according to their respective national interests and priorities.The roadmap presented here encompasses the results of a consultation exercise across countries and presents good practices and practical tips. It acknowledges that there is no single solution, but a number of possible pathways instead, depending on national contexts and priorities. The roadmap is a strategic document looking at the whole value chain in the development of efficiency indicators, from the initial point where the need for data and indicators arises up to the later dissemination and data use stages, and is meant to be a useful resource for practitioners across the globe in the development of energy efficiency indicators.
Government action plays a pivotal role in ensuring secure and sustainable energy transitions and combatting the climate crisis. Energy policy is critical not just for the energy sector but also for meeting environmental, economic and social goals. Governments need to respond to their country’s specific needs, adapt to regional contexts and help address global challenges. In this context, the International Energy Agency (IEA) conducts Energy Policy Reviews to support governments in developing more impactful energy and climate policies.
This Energy Policy Review was prepared in partnership between the Government of Denmark and the IEA. It draws on the IEA's extensive knowledge and the inputs of expert peers from IEA member countries to assess Denmark’s most pressing energy sector challenges and provide recommendations on how to address them, backed by international best practices. The report also highlights areas where Denmark’s leadership can serve as an example in promoting secure clean energy transitions. It also promotes the exchange of best practices among countries to foster learning, build consensus and strengthen political will for a sustainable and affordable clean energy future.
The global energy system faces urgent challenges. Concerns about energy security are growing, as highlighted by the recent political turmoil in Northern Africa and the nuclear incident in Fukushima. At the same time, the need to respond to climate change is more critical than ever. Against this background, many governments have increased efforts to promote deployment of renewable energy – low-carbon sources that can strengthen energy security. This has stimulated unprecedented rise in deployment, and renewables are now the fastest growing sector of the energy mix.
This “coming of age” of renewable energy also brings challenges. Growth is focused on a few of the available technologies, and rapid deployment is confined to a relatively small number of countries. In more advanced markets, managing support costs and system integration of large shares of renewable energy in a time of economic weakness and budget austerity has sparked vigorous political debate.
The IEA’s new report, Deploying Renewables 2011: Best and Future Policy Practice:
· Provides a comprehensive review and analysis of renewable energy policy and market trends;
· Analyses in detail the dynamics of deployment and provides best-practice policy principles for different stages of market maturity;
· Assesses the impact and cost-effectiveness of support policies using new methodological tools and indicators;
· Investigates the strategic reasons underpinning the pursuit of RE deployment by different countries and the prospects for globalisation of RE.
This new book builds on and extends a 2008 IEA publication, drawing on recent policy and deployment experience world-wide. It provides guidance for policy makers and other stakeholders to avoid past mistakes, overcome new challenges and reap the benefits of deploying renewables – today and tomorrow.
Deploying Renewables: Principles for Effective Policies examines the key factors that will determine the success of renewable energy policies and how current policies can be improved to encourage greater deployment of renewables. Responding to the Gleneagles G8 call for a clean and secure energy future, it highlights key policy tools to fast-track renewables into the mainstream. This analysis illustrates good practices by applying the combined metrics of effectiveness and efficiency to renewable energy policies in the electricity, heating and transport sectors. It highlights significant barriers to accelerating renewables penetration, and argues that the great potential of renewables can be exploited much more rapidly and to a much larger extent if good practices are adopted.
Driven by an increasing recognition of the many advantages of natural gas and by the need to diversify its coal-dominated energy supply, China’s natural gas industry is poised for rapid expansion. This study describes China’s gas market situation and examines the key issues facing its industry and policy makers. Drawing on the experiences and lessons from developed gas markets around the world and taking into account the specific circumstances of the Chinese gas market, it also offers a number of policy suggestions for the Chinese government to consider in its effort to boost the country’s natural gas industry.
The trading of natural gas in the Asia-Pacific region is dominated by long-term contracts in which the price of gas is indexed to that of oil. As the price of gas between Asia and other parts of the world has widened in recent years, observers have raised serious doubts about the sustainability of this pricing model. In this report, the IEA shows what it would take to create a functional, regional natural-gas trading hub in which prices reflect the local supply and demand fundamentals.
The report aims to provide stakeholders with insights on the changes that are required in the Asia-Pacific natural gas sector -- both downstream and upstream -- to allow a competitive natural gas price to emerge. Building on OECD Europe and OECD America experiences, this report sets out to assess perspectives for these changes in the Asia-Pacific natural gas markets. It identifies obstacles and opportunities for a competitive natural gas price in the Asian economies to emerge.
The OECD has been working on water policy reform in the countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia for over 20 years. Three of the countries within the region, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine have signed Association Agreements with the European Union. These agreements provide a framework for deeper political ties and stronger economic links with the EU and include commitments for approximation towards EU legislation including the Water Framework Directive.
Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine have ambitious long-term strategic plans for their water sectors, which include fulfilment of requirements under the Association Agreements and international commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals. The water policy outlooks baseline the country policy framework and current performance and then define the long-term vision and aspirations to 2030. The outlooks aim to demonstrate the likelihood of the current policy framework to achieve the long-term objectives and desired future state of the water sector, and include identification of opportunities for improving policy coherence and policies that have the opportunity to improve the likelihood of success.
A regional ASEAN Power Grid (APG) would help ASEAN countries meet their rising energy demands, improve access to energy services and reduce the costs of developing an energy infrastructure. Two primary advantages of system integration are the increase in security of supply and efficiency. Larger service territories allow for the pooling of generating resources, thus taking advantage of the benefits of generation diversity.
Establishing electricity security regulations, co-ordinated planning, allocating the cost of transmission development, revising network codes and system monitoring is crucial for a functioning market. ASEAN member countries hence should work closely together to set common long-term goals for a regional market. The medium-term target should be harmonisation of grid codes and reliability standards. To ensure this, an independent regional regulator should be established and given a mandate to look after the common benefits and interests of the ASEAN member countries.
In its latest publication, Development of Competitive Gas Trading in Continental Europe, the IEA examines the history of major gas markets’ development in OECD Europe, and explores the possible expansion of trading through the mechanism of different hubs across the region. Lessons learned from North American markets on the benefits of regulatory convergence and investor-friendly legal framework are an important part of the analysis. Competitive trading based on transparent, non-discriminatory rules in a flexible and integrated European gas market will lead to more efficiency, timely investment, and greater market resilience, therefore ensuring more security for both customers and suppliers in the long term.
Digital technologies are everywhere, affecting the way we live, work, travel, and play. Digitalization is helping improve the safety, productivity, accessibility, and sustainability of energy systems around the world. But it is also raising new security and privacy risks, while disrupting markets, businesses, and workers.
Digitalization & Energy is the International Energy Agency’s first comprehensive effort to depict how digitalization could transform the world’s energy systems. The report examines the impact of digital technologies on energy demand sectors, looks at how energy suppliers can use digital tools to improve operations, and explores the transformational potential of digitalization to help create a highly interconnected energy system.
This report seeks to provide greater clarity to decision makers in government and industry on what digitalization means for energy, shining a light on its enormous potential and most pressing challenges. It also lays out no-regret recommendations to help steer the world towards a more secure, sustainable, and smarter energy future.
Direct air capture plays an important and growing role in net zero pathways. Capturing CO2 directly from the air and permanently storing it removes the CO2 from the atmosphere, providing a way to balance emissions that are difficult to avoid, including from long-distance transport and heavy industry, as well as offering a solution for legacy emissions. Air-captured CO2 can also be used as a climate-neutral feedstock for a range of products that require a source of carbon. In the IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, direct air capture technologies capture more than 85 Mt of CO2 in 2030 and around 980 MtCO2 in 2050, requiring a large and accelerated scale-up from almost 0.01 MtCO2 today. Currently 18 direct air capture facilities are operating in Canada, Europe and the United States. The first large-scale direct air capture plant of up to 1 MtCO2/year is in advanced development and is expected to be operating in the United States by the mid-2020s. This report explores the growing momentum behind direct air capture, together with the opportunities and challenges for scaling up the deployment of direct air capture technologies consistent with net zero goals. It considers the current status of these technologies, their potential for cost reductions, their future energy needs, and the optimal locations for direct air capture facilities. Finally, the report identifies the key drivers for direct air capture investment and priorities for policy action.
Electric power in OECD countries is mostly produced by large central generating stations, then transmitted along high voltage lines to local distribution systems that carry it to final consumers. Distributed generation plants are different. They produce power on an electricity consumer’s own site or at the local distribution substation and can supply power directly to the customer or to the local distribution network. Distributed generation technologies include engines, small turbines, fuel cells, and photovoltaic systems.
Distributed generation technologies are already having a large impact, particularly for high- reliability applications, as a source of emergency capacity or as a way of deferring the expansion of a local network. In some markets, these plants are displacing more costly grid electricity. Globally, more capacity for distributed generation was ordered in 2000 than for nuclear power.
This book provides a guide to energy policy makers on this growing phenomenon. It surveys the current situation and market status of distributed generation in selected OECD countries, including the impact of current energy policies.