What will happen to green energy use in the future?

The mainstream media always seems keen to talk down “Green Energy” and expects us to believe that “Fossil Fuels” will not only be dominant but will continue to increase until at least 2050. Where do they get their assumptions from? Often, they use data from the IEA, but tend to misquote the source.

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What will happen to green energy use in the future?

The mainstream media always seems keen to talk down “Green Energy” and expects us to believe that “Fossil Fuels” will not only be dominant but will continue to increase until at least 2050. Where do they get their assumptions from? Often, they use data from the IEA, but tend to misquote the source.

Understanding the IEA’s Energy Scenarios

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released its World Energy Outlook. Many headlines suggested that oil and gas use would keep rising all the way to 2050, but this isn’t exactly what the IEA claims .

The IEA looks at different scenarios—not predictions or forecasts. A scenario is a “what if” story built on certain assumptions, while a forecast is what the IEA thinks is most likely to happen based on current trends—these are very different ideas. The Current Policies Scenario (CPS) is only based on policies that have already been made official. It doesn’t count new promises or plans that aren’t law yet. Other things like technology changes and economics are included, but only as far as current policies allow .

Why Does This Matter?

Scenarios help us see what the energy future might look like if nothing changes in the world’s laws and regulations about energy. Understanding what is “just a scenario” and what is an actual prediction is important. It stops us from making mistakes when reading headlines about the future of energy.

How is the world doing in cutting Carbon emission?

One way to compare the effectiveness of different governments in making progress with cutting carbon emissions is to examine their CCPI index.

The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an independent monitoring tool for the climate mitigation performance of 63 countries and the EU. Published annually since 2005, the CCPI has promoted important public and political debates in the countries assessed and beyond. The CCPI enhances transparency in international climate politics and enables comparison of climate mitigation efforts and progress made by individual countries. The countries in the Index account for more than 90% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Performance is assessed in four categories: GHG Emissions, Renewable Energy, Energy Use, and Climate Policy. 

Electric Vehicle Rollout: Uneven Growth

One example is how electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to grow. The CPS assumes that only the European Union and China have strong enough policies for big changes—almost all cars sold there could be electric by 2035. Most other regions, like the US and other countries, would see very slow growth or even no change. Globally, this means EV sales rise from 25% of new cars today to about 40% in 2035, and after that, the share could even fall a bit.

This is a pretty pessimistic scenario. It’s likely that the real world will see more growth in EVs in many countries, since they keep getting cheaper and better, and countries want to rely less on oil. But if EV sales really stalled, oil demand could keep rising until 2050.

Solar Power Growth: Is the Peak Near?

The CPS also assumes that construction of solar power plants (solar PV) stays stuck at 2024 levels for over a decade. For example, each year about 540 gigawatts of new solar power will be added until 2035, with no increase. In fact, earlier IEA scenarios also predicted global solar growth would slow, but every year, solar power has continued to grow faster than predicted .

Annual change in global electricity generation by source, 2023-2024 

Many energy experts think it is too pessimistic to believe that solar growth will level off for the next decade. Solar power has grown very quickly, especially in China, but even if growth slows there, many other countries are starting to build more solar power. There are reasons for solar to eventually slow down, but most experts do not think we have reached the global peak yet.

Why Scenarios Get Misunderstood

When the IEA releases a scenario, many people and media outlets mistake it for a prediction about the future. The CPS does not mean the IEA expects or predicts oil and gas use to keep rising until 2050—it just shows what would happen if no new energy laws or regulations are made.

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