However, potential developments in the market for renewables are excluded for simplification purposes. 27. For gas prices, regional differences play a larger role in determining the global average price.
Up until these events, most forecasters had been predicting that the major economies would have a relatively mild slowdown in 2009, and that Asia would be largely unaffected. Those predictions have since been replaced by forecasts of a major global downturn, with all significant countries affected. Australia entered this difficult period in much better shape than many other countries.