The energy future which we are creating is unsustainable. If we continue as before, the energy supply to meet the needs of the world economy over the next twenty-five years is too vulnerable to failure arising from under-investment, environmental catastrophe or sudden supply interruption.

This has been the central message from the World Energy Outlook for the past several years; and in 2005 at Gleneagles and 2006 at St. Petersburg, G8 leaders endorsed that judgement, making a political commitment to change. They asked the IEA to map a new energy future.

This edition of the Outlook responds to that challenge. It starts, like previous editions, with a Reference Scenario projecting energy demand and supply if present policies were to continue. This is not to cast doubt on the will for change. Rather it serves as a point of departure for the analysis of how and how far that future can be altered and at what cost. It is a reminder of why that must happen: despite the shock of continuing high oil prices, the projected energy
future has hardly changed.