It continues to do so — yet with a difference, one could say with some hindsight.

The emphasis, the focus of the WEO, seems now shifting.

For the last few years, this much sought after document has been increasingly focusing on global climate issues.

And the WEO 2011, unveiled last Wednesday in London, is no different.

It emits a stark warning to the energy hungry world — change your habits or be doomed.

Time is running out, it warns.

The world needs to make drastic changes to its energy infrastructure and consumption patterns, the International Energy Agency cautioned.

If fossil fuel infrastructure is not changed, and that too rather rapidly, the world will "lose for ever" the chance to avoid dangerous climate change, WEO-2011 emphasized.

IEA projects that the required investment in low-carbon technologies must be made by 2017 to prevent long-term average global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels.

“The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said.

“I am very worried — if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum (for safety). The door will be closed forever.”

Without a bold change of policy direction, the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system, which would have far-reaching consequences, stressing though there is still some time to act, yet the window of opportunity is closing.

“If we do not have an international agreement, whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to (holding temperatures to 2C of warming) will be closed forever,” said Birol.

Nevertheless, “as each year passes without clear signals to drive investment in clean energy, the ‘lock-ing of high-carbon infrastructure is making it harder and more expensive to meet our energy security and climate goals,” the IEA chief economist warned.

If the world is to stay below the 2 degrees Celcius of warming, regarded as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The WEO terms this as the 450 scenario.

However, as per the agency calculations, four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permitted to 2035 in the 450 Scenario have already been locked-in by existing capital stock, including power stations, buildings and factories.

The world’s existing infrastructure is already producing 80 percent of that “carbon budget” — producing around 390 ppm. And without any real action by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035, leaving no room for maneuver at all.

IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven added: “Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies. The Fukushima nuclear accident, the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010 which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge.”

Yet despite the talk, and stress all around, of low carbon economy, carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 jumped by 5.3 percent to a record 30.4 gigatons, “almost unprecedented annual growth,” another IEA report released last Wednesday said.

This amounted to an increase of 1.4 gt on the previous year.

Rising demand for coal, in particular from China and India, was among the main contributors for the increase in emissions in non-OECD countries.

But despite all this, the world seems moving in the other direction.

Governments are preparing to defer a speedy conclusion to the climate negotiations once again. Originally, the aim was to agree a successor to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the only binding international agreement on emissions, after its current provisions expire in 2012.

But after years of setbacks, an increasing number of countries — including the UK, Japan and Russia — now favor postponing the talks for several years.

Both Russia and Japan have spoken in recent weeks of aiming for an agreement in 2018 or 2020, and the UK has supported this move.

Greg Barker, the UK’s climate change minister recently said: “We need China, the US especially, the rest of the Basic countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) to agree. If we can get this by 2015 we could have an agreement ready to click in by 2020.”

To dear good old friend Fatih Birol, this is clearly too late.

“I think it’s very important to have a sense of urgency — our analysis shows (what happens) if you do not change investment patterns. And this can only happen if an international agreement is reached on the issue.”

And that seems difficult at the moment.

Major powers seem to be biding their time.

In the UK, Europe and the US, there are multiple plans for new fossil-fueled power stations that would contribute significantly to global emissions over the coming decades.

To the world it is still business as usual.

Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades.

An “unacceptably high” number of people — about 1.3 billion — still lack access to electricity. If people are to be lifted out of poverty, this must be solved — but providing people with renewable forms of energy generation is still expensive.

And in the meantime, the non-OECD car markets is projected to expand substantially; car sales there is to exceed those in the OECD by 2020, and the global passenger car fleet is set to double, reaching almost 1.7 billion by 2035, driving up oil consumption despite impressive gains in vehicle fuel economy and increased supplies of biofuels.

Alternative vehicle technologies are emerging, yes, but it will take time and concerted policy and industry action for them to become commercially viable and penetrate markets.

Meanwhile, in the foreseeable future, fossil fuel remains the king on the global energy horizon. Economies would emphasize growing by using the most cost-effective form of energy, regardless of concerns about climate change.

The term to watch is a cost-effective alternative and that is still much beyond grasp.

Painting the doomsday scenario is simply not working.