"IEA's climate models criticised as too fossil-fuel friendly", 2 April, 2019

In a letter to the International Energy Agency... businesses including Hermes Investment Management, Allianz Group and Legal & General Investment Management have asked the IEA to develop a new model with lower emissions that would line up with 1.5C of warming. The IEA's benchmark annual 'World Energy Outlook' is considered the definitive assessment of the energy sector, but critics say its models do not go far enough in mapping the deep cuts in carbon emissions needed to limit the worst climate impacts... Ingrid Holmes, head of policy at Hermes [said]..."as the climate crisis becomes more urgent, the credibility of the scenarios from the IEA has been reduced. From a company's perspective, at worst these scenarios could be used as a fig leaf for inaction... From a government perspective, one of the risks is complacency." Fatih Birol, IEA executive director, said ... "Our latest energy demand and emissions data for 2018 show that the world in which we live in is unfortunately in line with the new policies scenario, as emissions continue to increase... The World Energy Outlook has been, and remains, at the forefront of global efforts to combat climate change"... "By not providing more ambitious scenarios, it makes it much harder for those stakeholders to set more ambitious targets..." said Joeri Rogelj... a lead author of the UN's annual emissions report...  "Given the influence of the World Energy Outlook... it is no surprise that the current national commitments to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement would track us on to an unacceptable warming pathway," the letter said. [Subscription-only article]