The world must undergo a “new global energy revolution” and faces a huge bill of $45 trillion (£22 trillion) if it is to halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says.

The agency adds that the coming revolution will depend on sweeping changes to the electricity and motor industries, with 215 million sq m of solar panels needing to be “planted” across the globe and a billion electric or hybrid cars required.

Speaking at the release in Tokyo yesterday of its report Energy Technology Perspectives, Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA's executive director, said: “We will require immediate policy action and a technological transition on an unprecedented scale.”

The report, which set an aggressive agenda for impending summit talks on energy, included a forecast that to meet soaring demand for power from emerging Asian economies, at least 32 nuclear power plants must be constructed around the world every year over the next four decades.

The talks, starting in the Japanese city of Aomori today, are likely to see Japan touting its pre-eminence in alternative energy technologies, and calling for co-operation and heavy investment in the field by the other Group of Eight energy ministers and visiting delegates from India and South Korea.

Where Japan is likely to meet some resistance, however, is in its attempts to persuade other countries to throw their money and support behind so-called next-generation nuclear plants.

According to the IEA, the huge projected cost of cleaning up the way that electricity is generated around the world - effectively a renewed emphasis on nuclear energy - means that governments will, between them, have to invest just over $1trillion every year, a sum equivalent to the gross domestic product of Italy.

In its report, published as a curtain-raiser to today's G8 talks, the IEA says the need to invest in cutting-edge energy technologies, including the construction of 17,500 wind turbines and providing carbon-capture mechanisms for all coal-fired electricity plants.

The IEA's projections included the cost of adding carbon-capture and storage systems to about 35 coal-powered and 25 gas-powered power plants each year from 2010. Fitting the systems is expected to cost $1.5 billion a plant.

The energy ministers' meeting today was already tipped to be contentious. Japan, home of the original Kyoto protocol and host of the main G8 meeting in July, has been keen to pitch the entire series of summit meetings towards global warming and the energy crisis.

The IEA's report was produced at the request of the G8 leaders, who demanded a comprehensive set of “clean and green” energy scenarios as the developed world struggles to reduce its use of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The talks today will see presentations on solar, hydrogen and biomass energy - all technologies with huge promise, but vast development costs.

The meeting could embarrass Japan. Aomori is in a region where Japan has invested heavily in a nuclear facility to reprocess fuel rods. Japan has become more aware of the risk of reliance on nuclear power in the world's most earthquake-prone country since a quake last summer rattled a nuclear plant at Kashiwazaki, shutting it down.

Cost of cutting CO2

$45 trillion World cost of halving emissions of carbon dioxide by 2050

215 million Square metres of solar panels needed to be “planted” globally

32 New nuclear power stations needed each year for 40 years

$75 billion To add carbon-capture to coal-and gas-powered electricity plants

Source: International Energy Agency

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