Figure 1 Communicating with Government and Industry W EC is the world's leading nongovernmental energy policy forum. It has Member Committees in 94 countries that represent over 90 percent of world energy consumption. Membership in the committees includes the full range of energy industries, banks and financial institutions, equipment manufacturers, engineering companies, and major energy consumers. E CS's collaboration with WEC began in 1993, after WEC had completed a study of possible global energy futures through 2020. Because of the long lifetimes of power plants, refineries, and other energy investments, however, there is not a sufficient turnover of such facilities to reveal large differences in alternative energy scenarios prior to 2020.
All scenarios look much the same for the next few decades, and all rely heavily on fossil fuels.
But investments between now and 2020 will make a big difference in how global energy development unfolds after 2020. To evaluate these impacts and assess alternative near-term investment strategies, scenarios extending beyond 2020 are needed. None was limited by the exhaustion of any category of energy resources, nor did any require unprecedented investment rates. Case A, comprising Scenarios A1, A2, and A3, for example, incorporates rapid technological progress and high economic growth, particularly in developing countries. In Scenario A1 progress is fastest in oil and natural gas technologies, resulting in high future availability of oil and gas resources.