FORECASTING ENERGY DEMAND IN THE DEVELOPING-WORLD

The developing world with three-fourths of the world's population cons umes less than one-quarter of the world's commercial energy. As these countries grow and develop they Mill consume a larger share of the wor ld's commercial energy, The goal of this article is to estimate the ch anges in the developing world's energy consumption in the coming decad es. We use all available econometric estimates of income and price ela sticities and other historical trends for income, population, and pric e growth to forecast developing world energy consumption for the next thirty years. Although we find large uncertainties over the forecasts, most scenarios suggest that energy demand in the developing world wil l increase over 5.5% per year and that global energy consumption can b e expected to more than triple in the coming three decades.