Reducing the energy demand has become a key mechanism for limiting climate change, but there are practical limitations associated with large energy savings in a growing global economy and, importantly, its lower-income parts. Using new data on energy and GDP, we show that adopting the same near-term low-energy growth trajectory in all regions in IPCC scenarios limiting global warming to 1.5 °C presents an unresolved policy challenge. We discuss this challenge of combining energy demand reductions with robust income growth for the 6.4 billion people in middle- and low-income countries in light of the reliance of economic development on industrialization. Our results highlight the importance of addressing limits to energy demand reduction in integrated assessment modelling when regional economic development is powered by industrialization and of instead exploring faster energy supply decarbonization. Insights from development economics and other disciplines could help generate plausible assumptions given the financial, investment and stability issues involved.

减少能源需求已成为限制气候变化的关键机制，但在不断增长的全球经济中，尤其是低收入部分的大量能源节约存在实际限制。我们使用有关能源和 GDP 的新数据表明，在 IPCC 情景中，所有地区采用相同的近期低能耗增长轨迹将全球变暖限制在 1.5°C 是一项未解决的政策挑战。鉴于经济发展对工业化的依赖，我们讨论了将减少能源需求与中低收入国家 64 亿人的强劲收入增长相结合的挑战。我们的研究结果强调了在区域经济发展由工业化推动时，在综合评估模型中解决能源需求减少限制的重要性，而不是探索更快的能源供应脱碳。鉴于所涉及的金融、投资和稳定性问题，来自发展经济学和其他学科的见解可能有助于产生合理的假设。