The causality between energy consumption and real income in developed countries has been a very vital research topic in recent years. Raising concerns about climate change and global warming increase the pressure on policy makers to take action against energy depletion. Unfortunately these...

COP17 in Durban revealed once again the general willingness to commit to the 2°-target and the difficulty to reach an international Post-Kyoto agreement until 2015. There is strong evidence from model-based analysis that economic costs of reaching the 2°-target will be below global GDP growth...

Electricity generation from coal is still growing rapidly and energy scenarios from the IEA expect a possible increase from today's 1 600 GW of coal-fired power plants to over 2 600 GW until 2035. This trend will increase the lock-in of carbon intensive electricity sources, while IEA assessments...

Agency-based explanations of the great deprivation, contrasted with structure-based explanations, suffer not merely from the criticism of relying on irrational and irresponsible behavior of millions, including that of the most astute financial experts, but are also at a loss to explain why such...