Global energy demand will grow 37% and energy-related carbon pollution will increase 20% by 2040, even as renewables overtake coal as the world’s leading source of energy, the International Energy Agency concluded last Wednesday in its annual World Energy Outlook.
The report, which didn’t factor in the 640 gigatonnes of emission reductions in last week’s U.S.-China climate accord, means that “conservation efforts and more use of wind and solar power probably won’t slash emissions quickly enough to keep catastrophic consequences of climate change from happening,” Magill writes.
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The projected emissions increase “will make it extraordinarily difficult to avoid the dangerous consequences from global warming outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest assessment,” he says. The IEA reported that energy efficiency is beginning to cut into the growth in oil demand, and renewable energy costs are dropping. (h/t to Dennis Schvejda/Newsana for first pointing us to this story)
