• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Global fossil fuel demand’s ‘staggering’ fall

May 1, 2020
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Kieran Cooke

 

The world’s energy markets are in upheaval, as experts report an historic fall in global fossil fuel demand.

LONDON, 1 May, 2020 − One of the pillars of industrial society is tottering: global fossil fuel demand is buckling, with only renewable energy expected to show any growth this year.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

Oil prices are going through the floor. The market for coal and gas is shrinking fast. And global emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases are set to fall in 2020 by 8%, the largest annual decrease in emissions ever recorded.

The latest report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the global energy watchdog, will make sobering reading for those involved in the fossil fuel industry – and hearten those fighting against a warming world.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought death, pain and suffering around the world and is causing widespread economic and financial hardship.

But it’s become clear that the Covid crisis has done something that years of climate change negotiations have failed to do – it has not only forced us to change the way we live our lives, but also dramatically altered the way we use the planet’s resources, in particular its energy supplies.

‘Unheard-of slump’

“This is a historic shock to the entire energy world”, says Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director.

“Amid today’s unparalleled health and economic crises, the plunge in demand for nearly all major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil and gas.

“Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use”, says Dr Birol.

The IEA report, its Global Energy Review 2020, looks at likely energy trends over the coming months and analyses data accumulated over the first Covid-influenced 100 days of this year.

Overall world energy demand in 2020 is set to fall by 6% − a drop seven times greater than the decline recorded in the wake of the 2008/2009 global financial crash.

“The plunge in demand for nearly all major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil and gas. Only renewables are holding up”

That fall is equivalent to losing the entire annual energy demand of India − or the combined yearly demand of the UK, France, Germany and Italy.

Oil demand, says the report, is expected to decline by 9% over the present year, its biggest annual drop in a quarter of a century. Demand for gas – which has consistently expanded over recent times − is expected to fall by 5%.

The economic disruption caused by the Covid pandemic is likely to hit the coal industry – already in decline − particularly hard. The IEA forecasts coal demand to drop this year by 8% compared with 2019, its biggest year-on-year decline since the end of WWII.

“It is still too early to determine the longer-term impacts, but the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before”, says the report.

The study says renewable energy is the one segment of the sector that will see growth over the present year.

Decline already begun

The dominant role of fossil fuels in the energy market was already in decline before the Covid crisis. This trend is likely to continue as low operating costs and flexible access to electricity grids make renewables ever more competitive.

Moves in many countries towards cleaner energy and more climate change-related regulations will see an overall growth of 5% in renewable electricity generation in 2020.

The IEA is generally seen as a conservative body, careful not to offend powerful interests in the global energy industry.

It says the resilience of renewable energy in the midst of a global crisis could encourage fossil fuel companies to switch to generating more clean energy.

There is the possibility that countries will revert to the old ways, with fossil fuel use climbing again as economies recover.

‘Inescapable’ challenge ahead

The IEA urges governments to put clean energy at the centre of their economic recovery plans and prioritise clean energy technologies including batteries, hydrogen and carbon capture.

In an article last month Dr Birol talked of the impact the Covid crisis was having on people’s health and economic activity.

“Although they may be severe, the effects are likely to be temporary”, he wrote.

“Meanwhile the threat posed by climate change, which requires us to reduce global emissions significantly this decade, will remain.

“We should not allow today’s crisis to compromise our efforts to tackle the world’s inescapable challenge.” − Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
43
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
26
Western Arctic National Parklands/wikimedia commons
Arctic & Antarctica

Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop

January 2, 2023
28

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
324
Lucio Santos/flickr

Canadian Banks Increased Fossil Investment in 2021, Report Card Shows

November 27, 2022
115
RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.4k
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
Green Energy Futures/Flickr

Australian Suburb Connects Community Battery to Rooftop Solar

May 3, 2022
10
Joshua Doubek/Wikipedia

No New Jobs Came from Alberta’s $4B ‘Job Creation’ Tax Cut for Big Oil

October 6, 2022
501

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
121
Next Post

Study Suggests Little to No Climate Benefit in Working from Home

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}