ENERGY, ECONOMICS AND CLIMATE - AN EDITORIAL

This editorial by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute argues that the perceived inevitability of increased fossil fuel consumption is a flawed assumption. By applying engineering-economic analysis, the authors suggest that a 'least-cost energy strategy' focusing on energy efficiency and renewables can reduce fossil fuel reliance to nearly zero within half a century, effectively mitigating the CO2 problem through economic rationality rather than solely through climatic cost-benefit analyses.

• The authors argue that climatologists often rely on the flawed assumption that increases in the rate of burning fossil fuels are inevitable and essential for global development, typically assuming a continuous annual increase of several percent.
• Since 1979, the United States has gained approximately 100 times more new energy from energy savings than from all expansions of energy supply combined, with renewable sources contributing more new energy than all nonrenewables.
• A case study of the 1973 West German economy demonstrated that implementing the main efficiency improvements available at the time could have reduced the total energy required to run that economy by 82%.
• The authors propose an 'efficiency scenario' where a world with doubled population and nearly five times the global economic activity could use less than half the total energy in 2080 compared to current levels, with CO2 levels in 2030 rising only 10% above current levels.
• The document asserts that a strategy to reduce fossil fuel burning to nearly zero over approximately 50 years is feasible and cost-saving, regardless of whether the climatic costs of carbon emissions are factored into the economic calculation.
• The authors contrast their findings with a 'low' scenario from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), which predicts global energy use will be 2.5 times the current rate by 2030, leading to a CO2 concentration of about 450 ppmv.
• The authors conclude that the CO2 problem is likely a result of economically inefficient energy policies and that a high-energy, high-climatic-risk strategy is uneconomic and would not survive in a free market.

APA

Lovins, A. B., & Lovins, L. H. (n.d.). ENERGY, ECONOMICS AND CLIMATE - AN EDITORIAL. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E82-02-Energy-Economics-and-Climate.pdf

Chicago

Lovins, Amory B., and L. Hunter Lovins. ENERGY, ECONOMICS AND CLIMATE - AN EDITORIAL. RMI, n.d. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E82-02-Energy-Economics-and-Climate.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lovins |first1=Amory B. |last2=Lovins |first2=L. Hunter |title=ENERGY, ECONOMICS AND CLIMATE - AN EDITORIAL |publisher=RMI |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E82-02-Energy-Economics-and-Climate.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lovinsndenergy, author = {Lovins, Amory B. and Lovins, L. Hunter}, title = {{ENERGY, ECONOMICS AND CLIMATE - AN EDITORIAL}}, institution = {RMI}, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E82-02-Energy-Economics-and-Climate.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }