Global demand for fossil fuels could peak starting later this decade, according to a prominent energy forecaster, as part of a faster-than-expected shift that the agency says has been hastened by the energy crisis stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, the Paris-based International Energy Agency says the war and the disruption to energy markets that it has unleashed has set off a realignment of global supply and demand. If governments make good on policy goals they have set in motion recently in response to the crisis, they would speed up the shift from fossil fuels to cleaner renewable energy, the agency says.
Based on such a scenario, the IEA says additional coal demand prompted by the energy crisis would be temporary, while natural gas demand would plateau by the end of this decade. As a result of the increased use of electric vehicles, the IEA says, oil demand will peak sometime in the middle of the next decade, plateauing until about 2050, and then falling. Read the full story (subscription).
