The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook has long beenrecognised as theauthoritative source for projections of global trends in energy supply and demand, trade and investment and carbon dioxide emissions. For the first time this year’s Outlook extends its projection horizon to the year 2030. Against the background of the re-emergence of energy security as a global concern, this Outlook highlights the rapidly expanding importance of China as a strategic buyer on world oil and gas markets, the fact that a quarter of the world’s population still lacks modern energy services, the huge investments needed to maintain dependable energy supplies world wide, and the scale of the task facing those countries that are committed to reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.