Responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the International Energy Agency unveiled a 10-point plan this week to slash oil demand in developed economies by about 2.7 million barrels a day within four months. Reducing demand will make it a lot easier to impose tough sanctions on Russian exports, but the proposals also serve the longer-term goal of putting energy use on a more sustainable path.
If achieved, the reduction would represent about 5.5 per cent of the agency’s forecast for oil demand in the countries of the OECD this year. Even more could be cut if measures were adopted by less-developed countries as well. Many of the 10 points are things that have been done before, either during the oil-price crises of the 1970s or more recently during the Covid-19 pandemic.
