The new energy crisis is not related to high oil prices or to the exhaustion of oil and gas reserves. The new crisis comes from the recent intrusion of climate change issues into energy economics and geopolitics. The reality of climate change has been hidden and long denied. Today the warming of the climate is a proven reality and acknowledged by the international scientific community, but no one knows exactly what will be the physical, economic, geopolitical and social impacts of the phenomenon. It could be very costly for the world economy, especially for the more vulnerable countries that are often among the poorest. Climate change has recently revealed that the current energy/ environment equilibrium is unsustainable. The unbalance may be described with a few figures. Today there are 6.5 billion people living on the Earth. Among them 1.2 billion (18 per cent) account for almost 50 per cent of world energy consumption and are responsible for 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Among the others, roughly 2 billion people are living on less than two dollars per day. They have access to neither modern energy products (electricity and petroleum products) nor clean water, meaning that they do not have access to economic development. In the West, each US citizen consumes every year eight tons of oil equivalent and he or she does not want to question the American way of life. In the Far East, a Chinese citizen consumes less than one ton of oil equivalent per year but he or she wants more economic growth and more wealth, including car ownership. If the Chinese had today the same standard of living as developed countries they would have 700 million cars, implying an annual gasoline consumption equivalent to the entire annual oil production of the Middle East. This is just impossible. Two other planets would be needed. On the one hand, millions of people need to increase their energy consumption to feed their economic development. On the other hand, GHG emissions must be reduced to keep the planet clean and accept-able for the coming generations. The situation is aggravated if we take into account demographic factors which will see the world’s population rise from 6.5 to 9 billion before 2050, the majority of the newcomers being born in developing countries.