As always, the release of a new @IEA World Energy Outlook comes with our warnings that the report’s scenarios shouldn’t be treated as forecasts.

And sometimes, we get the question back: Why not? Why doesn’t the IEA have a long-term forecast?

A short thread for #WEO19:

1/

There are essentially three types of scenario:

1) "Best guesses," i.e. forecasts.
2) Exploratory scenarios, which set some starting conditions and see where they lead.
3) Normative scenarios, which fix the destination and then work out how to get there.

2/

The Stated Policies Scenario is the 2nd type, exploratory. It explores the consequences of policies/targets that have already been announced. The aim is to hold up a mirror to today’s plans, not to peer through the looking glass & guess how these plans may evolve in future.

3/

The Sustainable Development Scenario is normative. It fixes the end point – a trajectory fully in line with international climate targets & other sustainable development goals – & looks in detail at what it would take to meet them.

More on this here: https://iea.li/2Ocq36k 

4/

We @IEA are convinced that these are the points of reference that decision-makers need. They need to know:

1) where they are heading and the pitfalls that lie ahead, &
2) what they would need to do differently to reach the energy/sustainability goals that they have set.

5/

A forecast would not help with either of these tasks. It would obscure the clarity of the message that the Stated Policies Scenario provides on the consequences of today’s plans and ambitions.

6/

Even more important, it would risk diluting the urgency of the call for change. All the "best guesses" – all of them, without exception – fall well short of international climate targets. There’s no good reason why we should settle for that.

#WEO19 https://iea.li/2QhNwWj 

end/