IEA: Fossil fuel emissions to peak soon, green transition must speed up

While some countries have been burning more fossil fuels such as coal in 2022 in response to natural gas shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, that effect is expected to be short-lived, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday in its World Energy Outlook, which forecasts global energy trends to 2050.

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And for the first time, the agency now predicts that worldwide demand for every type of fossil fuel will peak in the near future.

The report says the energy crisis sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine is likely to speed up rather than slow down the global transition away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner technologies such as wind, solar and electric vehicles.

One major reason for a peak in emissions is that countries have responded to soaring fossil fuel prices in 2022 by embracing wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles and electric heat pumps.

In the United States, Congress approved more than US$370 billion (S$521 billion) in spending on such technologies under the recent Inflation Reduction Act. Japan is pursuing a new "green transformation" programme that will help fund nuclear power, hydrogen and other low-emission technologies.

China, India and South Korea have all ratcheted up national targets for renewable and nuclear power.