• Total final consumption rises in the Current Policies Scenario (CPS) by around 1.3% each year over the next decade, similar to the average annual increase over the last decade: global industrial output, appliance ownership and demands for mobility all increase, while energy efficiency gains are modest. 

• Demand for oil rises to 113 million barrels per day by 2050, mainly due to its increased use in emerging market and developing economies for road transport, petrochemical feedstocks, and aviation. Electric vehicle (EV) uptake stalls in regions lacking strong policy support: China and Europe are the main exceptions, and they see continued growth in EV sales. Global natural gas demand rises to 5 600 billion cubic metres by 2050: demand in the Middle East increases strongly, but developing economies in Asia are the largest source of demand growth, and their rising supply needs are met by new pipelines from Russia to China and by increased flows of liquefied natural gas.  

• Oil and gas prices rise to 2050 in the CPS. The United States remains the world’s largest oil and gas producer through to 2050, but oil production of the OPEC+ in 2050 is 15% higher than at any point in history. The CPS assumes that, by the latter part of the projection period, constraints on oil production and trade in countries currently subject to sanctions ease, so their output is determined by the underlying economics. If this is not the case, and geopolitical constraints remain in place, demand could be met through increased production in other countries, but this would entail increased investment, and would probably also mean higher prices.  

• Electricity demand rises in all countries and regions, with the strongest growth in India and Indonesia, but the push for a much more electrified energy system does not gain broad momentum in the CPS. Solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind are cost competitive in many regions, but deployment faces integration challenges that slow further growth: annual solar PV capacity additions average 540 gigawatts to 2035, similar to the level in 2024. Coal remains the largest single source of global power generation for the next ten years. Construction of new nuclear facilities accelerates in the 2030s. Global electricity grids increase by 25 million kilometres (km), a 30% increase, to 2035, and by a further 40 million km to 2050. 

• Annual global energy-related CO2 emissions rise slightly from current levels and approach 40 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year in the early 2030s, remaining around this level through to 2050. Emissions fall in aggregate in advanced economies, most substantially in Europe, and decline in China from 2030 onwards, but they increase elsewhere. Total greenhouse gas emissions lead to a global average surface temperature rise of around 2 °C in 2050 and 2.9 °C in 2100. 

The United States remains the world’s largest oil and gas producer through to 2050, but production in the Middle East grows robustly.