Cities drive economic growth but can also drive sustainable change. As the share of the world’s population living in cities rises, ambitious action in urban areas can be instrumental in achieving long‑term sustainability of the global energy system – including the carbon emission reductions required to meet the climate goals reached at COP21 in Paris. Support from national governments is a strategic prerequisite for leveraging the potential for sustainable energy technology and policy in cities that too often lies untapped.

With global energy demand set to become even greater over the coming decades, Energy Technology Perspectives 2016 (ETP 2016) looks at the technology and policy opportunities available for accelerating the transition to sustainable urban energy systems. Such potential could be the key to successfully driving an energy transition that many still think impossible, provided that local and national actions can be aligned to meet the sustainability objectives at both levels. Indeed, policies still have a long way to go in this regard: ETP 2016 presents the annual IEA Tracking Clean Energy Progress report, which finds once again that despite some notable progress, the rate of needed improvements is far slower than required to meet energy sector sustainability goals.

By setting out sustainable energy transition pathways that incorporate detailed and transparent quantitative analysis alongside well-rounded commentary, ETP 2016 and its series of related publications have become required reading not only for experts in the energy field, policy makers and heads of governments, but also for business leaders and investors.