Global insights

Projections

• Energy efficiency improves between 2% and 3.5% p.a. depending on the scenario, compared with a 1.5% p.a. average of the recent past.

• Fossil fuels as share of primary energy declines from just below 80% today to between under 60% in New Momentum and 20% in Net Zero, of which nearly half is abated with CCUS.

• Within fossil fuels, natural gas remains the most resilient, increasing by nearly a third in New Momentum by 2050. In Accelerated, gas increases over the next decade before declining to one-third below 2019 level in 2050. In Net Zero, gas demand falls by nearly 60% over the same period.
  
• Oil demand peaks in the mid-2020s in Accelerated and around 2030 in New Momentum. In all scenarios oil demand declines by 2050 to between 25 mb/d and 80 mb/d.

• Coal declines in all scenarios to between 3% and below 15% of primary energy, compared to 25% today.

• Electricity generation more than doubles by 2050 in Accelerated and Net Zero and increases by 85% in New Momentum. 

• Wind and solar power contribute between 85% and 115% of generation growth to 2050, reaching between 11,000 and 21,000 GW of installed capacity depending on the scenarios. This compares to 1,200 GW of installed capacity in 2019.
• Hydrogen demand increases as the energy system progressively decarbonizes to nearly 300 Mt in Accelerated by 2050 and 450 Mt in Net Zero, of which over 60% is generated by wind and solar. Hydrogen demand in New Momentum reaches 50 Mt over the same period, one-third of which is ‘green’.

• The use of modern, sustainable bioenergy increases strongly in all scenarios, with total bioenergy growing by nearly a third by 2050 to around 70 EJ, 10% of primary energy.