In a forecast issued Tuesday on world energy needs, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says world energy demand will expand by nearly 60 percent between now and 2030 to 16.5 billion tonnes of oil equivalent.

Some 85 percent of the increase will come from oil, gas and coal, whose carbon dioxide (CO2) byproduct, scientists say, is warming the planet's atmosphere and may damage its fragile climate system. Two-thirds of the rise in demand will come from developing countries.

The one bit of good news for the environment in the IEA report is that use of renewables, a definition here that covers geothermal, solar, wind, tidal and wave energy, will expand faster than any other energy source -- by 5.7 percent per year on current trends.

However, the rise is from a very low base. Renewables share of world energy will rise from only two percent to six percent by 2030 on the current basis.

"If current government policies do not change, energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide will grow marginally faster than energy use," the agency warns.

"CO2 emissions will be more than 60 percent higher in 2030 than now."

By comparison, scientists are demanding a 60-percent cut in emissions from the middle of this century in order to stave off potentially dangerous climate change.

For that reason, many experts are scathing about the UN's Kyoto Protocol, which -- if implemented in full -- will trim carbon pollution by industrialised countries by two or three percent by 2012 as compared to their 1990 level.

That figure does not include the United States -- a Kyoto holdout that by itself is responsible for a quarter of the pollution -- nor fast-growing developing countries, such as China and India.

In this context, the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2004 report sets out an "alternative policy scenario" that would try to ease the dependence on fossil fuels, especially among developing economies.

The "scenario" puts the accent on greater energy efficiency, especially in road transport, electrical appliances, lighting and industry, and incentives to switch to clean energy.

That way, energy demand would be about 10 percent lower compared with the current-trends scenario, and energy-related emissions of CO2 would be 16 percent lower by 2030.

"More vigorous action could steer the world onto a markedly different energy path," said Claude Mandil, the IEA's executive director.

The IEA gives several examples as to how it makes the estimates for the "alternative policy scenario."

One of them is the European Union's programme to increase the share of renewables in electricity consumption from 13.9 percent in 1997 to 22.1 percent in 2010.

The IEA believes the EU will fall short of this goal, achieving 18.3 percent in 2010, but projects that the pro-renewable policy line will continue into the future. By 2030, it believes, 34 percent of the 25-nation bloc's electricity consumption will come from clean sources.

Another example is that of China's latest energy plan, running from 2001-05.

When new standards are implemented from 2008, new cars will have to be between seven and 10 percent more fuel-efficient than in 2000 -- a standard that will be as high as in Japan and higher than in the United States.

In the "alternative scenario," the IEA model assumes that China will raise the bar by an additional 10 percent between 2008 and 2030, thus making its cars the most fuel-efficient of any major economy.

It would also apply similiar standards to its fleet of trucks and buses, which account for about a fifth of all vehicles on Chinese roads.

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