Martin Wolf is one of a number of excellent commentators who appear regularly on the FT’s op-ed pages. In his article this week (in the url link below), he summarizes a recent report by the International Energy Agency that provides an overview of the state of the global energy industry and its frightening projected increases in future demand (Issues: Environmental Sustainability, p171; Special Cases of CSR: ExxonMobil, p292; Shell, p302). There is no point me providing a summary of a summary—the article is better read directly. I was struck, however, by the quote he uses to open the article, which highlights starkly the challenge the world faces in the coming decades in transforming a global economy that is dependent on carbon-based fuels—a dependence that is only intensifying with rapid economic expansion:
“"The increase in China's energy demand between 2002 and 2005 was equivalent to Japan's current annual energy use." This nugget of information … tells one almost all one needs to know about what is happening to the world's energy economy.”
Have a good weekend.
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther/
Welcome to the new world of runaway energy demand.
By MARTIN WOLF
1100 words
14 November 2007
Financial Times
Asia Ed1
Page 11
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af2a0ed4-9223-11dc-8981-0000779fd2ac.html
