ABSTRACT
Tropical forests are in jeopardy mainly because they are used – and very inefficiently as a source of fuel. On a global scale fuelwood contributes only about 6% of all primary energy. Urbanization in the industrialized world has been an energy intensive process. There is little reason to doubt that urbanization in the developing countries will be energy intensive too. The low oil prices of certainly aggravate the debt problem of the oil producing developing countries. On the other hand, the far greater group of oil-importing developing countries can foresee a relief, which is also the case for most of the industrialized countries. The basic situation is only marginally different from that of 1973 and 1979. The need for energy in the developing countries is forever growing and in the industrialized countries the public awareness of environmental problems has restricted the number of options available.
