The Intergovernmental Energy Agency’s First Year in a Climate Transition: Implications for Climate Change and the United States, Europe, and the Middle East

“Every country needs to find its own pathway, but international cooperation is crucial for accelerating clean energy transitions,” Birol says. The speed of emissions decline will depend on our ability to finance sustainable solution to meet rising energy demand from the world’s fast growing economies.

Still, the IEA says an “unprecedented surge” in new natural gas export projects, including those in the U.S., are part of its projections. Russia’s decision to cut gas supplies to Europe was a cause of concern, according to the agency.

For now, the world is still on track to reach roughly 2.4 degrees of global warming this century. The report points to a potential shortage of fossil gas supplies, which is counter to global climate goals. More than half of the globalliquefiednatural gas (Liquefied Natural Gas) supply will be added in capacity by the year 2030, thanks to a surge of new projects since Russia’s invasion of Ukranian.

But the report warns the pace of the transition will have to quicken considerably in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and avoid some of the worst case scenarios in a changing climate.

Cleaning up pollution from homes, buildings, and transportation will require the use of electric cars and heating and cooling systems. By the end of the decade, electric heat pumps are expected to outsell fossil fuel boilers. The adoption of electric vehicles has accelerated this year, with one in five cars sold this year having an electric motor.

That’s the picture the International Energy Agency (IEA) paints in the World Energy Outlook it published today, which is based on governments’ current energy policies. After the 1970s oil crisis, theIEA was established to help safeguard global energy supplies. As climate-related disasters threaten power grids across the world, shoring up energy systems means bringing renewable energy online to prevent extreme climate change.

That is great news for reducing greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. About 200 countries will work to limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times with the help of the Paris agreement. It’s a goal that would prevent flooding, heatwaves, fires, and other climate-related catastrophes from growing much worse.

Meanwhile, world leaders are set to convene in Dubai in December for a United Nations climate summit where a global deal to phase out fossil fuels could be on the table. “Nations must come together to secure agreement on a fast, fair phaseout of fossil fuels, alongside a massive ramp-up of renewable energy and energy efficiency,” Union of Concerned Scientists policy director and lead economist Rachel Cleetus said in an emailed statement.