Energy transition progress

2050 insights

• By 2030, carbon emissions are projected to fall for the first time, while economic activity and prosperity continue to expand, driven by greater energy efficiency, increased renewables, and lower-emission technologies.
• But more progress is needed as the world is not yet on track for the Paris Agreement. Reducing emissions to achieve a below 2°C pathway will require supportive policy, technology innovation, and market incentives to drive faster deployment of all available solutions.
• Hard-to-decarbonize commercial transportation and industrial activity will account for nearly half of the world’s emissions in 2050.  Abatement in these sectors will require technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and biofuels.
• Efficiency will play an essential role in reducing the carbon intensity of the global economy.

Different assumptions about how the world will continue to evolve produce dramatically different paths to 2050.

• Projections such as the Global Outlook start with current factors including public policy and commercially available technology, and then evaluate how they might change over time.
• In contrast, scenarios such as the IPCC Likely Below 2°C start with a hypothetical outcome and work backward to identify the factors that need to occur to achieve that outcome.

By 2050, energy related emissions are projected to decline by 25%, but more is needed to achieve a below 2°C pathway.

• Commercial transportation and industrial activity account for nearly half of the world’s emissions in 2050.
• A rapid scaling of emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage, along with continued deployment of solar and other renewables will be required.

All lower-emission solutions grow between 2020 and 2050 in IPCC Likely Below 2°C scenarios. None of the IPCC pathways rely on only one or two solutions, reiterating that “all of the above” is required to achieve a below 2°C pathway.

Carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and biofuels are essential solutions for hard-to-decarbonize sectors.

• Unlike personal transportation, electrification is ill-suited for commercial transport, such as long-haul trucks or aviation. Similarly, industrial applications require intense heat and hydrocarbon-based feedstocks that cannot be solely met with electrification.

While progress is being made, deployment this decade is not yet on track to achieve a below 2°C pathway.

• Deployment trends this decade provide essential insights on an energy transition.
• Hydrogen and carbon capture and storage need to rapidly deploy to achieve 2030 government pledges.

Scenarios agree*: reducing emissions will require deployment of ALL available technologies.

• From 2019 to today, the most progress has been made in solar and wind deployment, EV sales, and biofuels, whereas to-date, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen have yet to show meaningful progress at the global scale.
• There is a range of potential outcomes for each solution to 2030, but one message is clear: All solutions need to increase deployment this decade. This is the case for our Global Outlook, IEA STEPS, IEA APS, IEA NZE, and the IPCC Likely Below 2°C scenarios.

*”scenarios” refers to IPCC Likely Below 2°C and IEA STEPS, APS, and NZE from ’23 World Energy Outlook.

Continued efficiency improvements and lower-emission solutions are critical to reducing emissions while expanding economic prosperity for a growing population.

• The primary drivers for increasing global CO₂ emissions between 2000 and 2023 were population and economic growth.
• Improving energy efficiency (energy use per unit of GDP) helped slow the growth in emissions, while global CO₂ intensity of energy use remained fairly constant in history.  Increased coal use in some non-OECD countries offset emission reductions in the OECD countries.
• As the world’s economy doubles by 2050, technology will be essential to mitigate emissions. The Global Outlook projects continued energy efficiency gains and a sustained improvement of CO₂ intensity with more lower-emissions solutions such as solar, wind, nuclear, coal-to-gas switching, carbon capture and storage.