Using the GEA: The future of energy

The GEA pathways illustrate how societies can reach global normative goals including:

• Providing almost universal access to affordable clean cooking and electricity for the poor;
• Limiting air pollution and health damages from energy use;
• Improving energy security throughout the world; and
• Limiting climate change.

Meeting these goals simultaneously has served as the generic framework for all assessments in the GEA. The GEA explored 60 possible transformation pathways and found that 41 of them satisfy all the GEA goals simultaneously for the same level of economic development and demographic changes, including three groups of illustrative pathways that represent alternative evolutions of the energy system toward sustainable futures. The pathways imply radically changed ways in which humanity uses energy, ranging from much more energy-efficient houses, mobility, products, and industrial processes to a different mix of energy supply – with a much larger proportion of renewable energy and fossil advanced fossil fuel technologies.

Video: How do we assess possible energy futures?

Video: What are the strategies to transform the energy system?

Last edited: 02 January 2014