The challenge is to provide the clean, affordable energy necessary for rapid economic growth and rising living standards in emerging economies, while also fulfilling demand in the world's more developed economies. This will require a combination of increasing conservation, expanding and diversifying our energy supply, and improving energy efficiency.
Energy efficiency and conservation will continue to play an important role in slowing the growth in our energy demand. It is in the interests of all stakeholders-energy producers, industrial users, governments and consumers-to make the energy sources, we have to go as far as they can go.
One of the most critical environmental challenges facing the world today is reducing long-term growth in carbon emissions. The use of fossil fuels to meet the world's energy needs has contributed to an increase in carbon omissions-mainly carbon dioxide and methane-in the earth's atmosphere.
In Karachi, our consumption of energy has grown dramatically over the years. While our growth and development is something we can all be proud of, we should also be aware that this massive growth - in population, infrastructure and construction - has consequences. In our extremely hot climate, we need a lot of energy to power our air conditioning units, refrigerators, light bulbs, tvs, washing machines, computers, not ignoring the ever expanding industrial energy demands, being the hub of industrial activity of Pakistan.
At the same time, our consumption of energy adds to the worldwide problem of global warming. As most of our energy comes from burning fossil fuels, the more we consume and convert into energy, the more carbon dioxide (CO2) we emit. Rising CO2 levels lead to more heat being trapped in our atmosphere and thus contribute directly to rising temperatures. The temperature has already risen far enough to have a number of drastic impacts. And it can only get worse if it is left unchanged.
Clearly, we need to do something to prevent this.
