IEA plots 'world's first' net zero roadmap for global energy sector

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is drawing up the "world's first" comprehensive roadmap for the global energy sector to reach net zero emissions by 2050, with the organisation keen to have the landmark report ready to aid policymakers well-ahead of the COP26 Climate Summit in November.

Announced yesterday, the special report will be titled The World's Roadmap to Net Zero by 2050 and will set out in detail what is needed from governments, companies, investors, and citizens to fully decarbonise the energy sector at a pace that is consistent with limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5C, the IEA said.

The influential organisation said the report would look at a raft of areas impacted by the "very complex" global energy sector - including transport, heavy industry, buildings, and homes - setting out a plan for delivering net zero emissions over the next three decades.

Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, global governments are required to come forward with enhanced national decarbonisation plans in the coming months - known as Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs) in UN jargon - and as such slashing CO2 from energy systems is a top priority.

Set for release in May, the new report could therefore pay an influential role in decarbonisation efforts ahead of the crucial UN climate summit in Glasgow, as many global governments, policymakers, businesses, and investors rely on IEA data to develop their own energy and climate strategies.

"The energy that powers our daily lives and our economies also produces three-quarters of global emissions," said Dr Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA. "This means our climate challenge is essentially an energy challenge."

He said the roadmap to net zero emissions could play a vital role in helping countries identify and implement the actions needed to achieve climate, energy security, and affordability goals. "Nothing short of a total transformation of our energy infrastructure will be required," said Birol. "That calls for decisive action this year, next year and indeed every year to 2050."

The report marks a first for the IEA, which has in the past faced criticism for producing long-term energy and emissions projections that have often significantly underestimated the rise in renewables seen in recent years, while continuing to predict ongoing demand for fossil fuel energy.

Kelly Trout, interim director of the energy transitions and futures programme at campaign group Oil Change International, said the IEA's promise to deliver a net zero roadmap was "long overdue", and urged it to prioritise a phase-out of fossil fuels rather than "risky negative emissions technologies". 

"The real test of how serious Fatih Birol and the IEA are about tackling the climate emergency will be if this new scenario becomes the cornerstone of all the agency's work, and in particular its influential World Energy Outlook this fall," she said. 

Birol told journalists yesterday there was now greater need than ever for a detailed decarbonisation roadmap for the energy sector, following a troubling year for fossil fuel industries that have been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis in 2020. But while demand for oil and coal plummeted last year as renewables capacity continued to increase, he warned global greenhouse gas emissions were now on course to increase again in 2021 unless concerted policy action was taken.

Stimulus packages from global governments, he said, therefore presented an opportunity to further capitalise on the growth in clean energy and avoid a long term increase in emissions.

"In 2021 we will see a huge amount of stimulus packages from major economies around the world," Birol said. "The size of these packages will be big in terms of global economic history, and these trillions of dollars that will be injected in the global economy I do hope will put clean energy at the heart of global recovery plans."

Ahead of the report's launch, too, the IEA has announced plans to co-host a Clean Energy Transitions Summit on 31 March in partnership with the UK government, focusing on how governments can work together more effectively to ensure net zero targets are translated into concrete action in the run up to COP26.

Birol said he hoped the Summit would act as a "bridge" between COP21 in Paris in 2015, at which the Paris Agreement was born, and the COP26 Summit in Glasgow in November, at which the treaty is expected to be finalised and countries are expected to ramp up their decarbonisation and adaptation ambitions further.

In addition the IEA has set up a new commission - dubbed Our Inclusive Energy Future - to consider the social and economic impacts on individuals and communities of decarbonisation efforts, including issues of affordability and fairness, in a bid to encourage a so-called 'Just Transition' to net zero emissions.

The Commission's meetings are to be chaired by Denmark's Energy, Climate, and Utilities Minister Dan Jørgensen, with a view to delivering a set of final recommendations for governments and industry well in advance of COP26 in November.

"I am very determined that the IEA will lead global energy transitions," Birol said yesterday, as he stressed that "no oil and gas company will be unaffected from clean energy transitions".

COP26 President Alok Sharma, who last week stepped down as the UK's Business Secretary in order to lead preparations of the UN climate summit full-time, said he was looking forward to working closely with the IEA on its energy decarbonisation work in 2021.

"International collaboration is at the heart of the UK's COP26 Presidency, and I am proud that the UK government will co-host the COP26-IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit to help accelerate the global shift to clean, affordable and resilient energy," he said.

"The IEA's plan to produce a pathway to net zero global emissions by 2050 is another important step for climate action," Sharma added. "This will make clear the actions countries must take individually and collectively to meet that goal."