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Carbon-Free Electricity in G20 Countries
Status and the way forward In 2024, the Republic of Korea proposed the Carbon-Free Energy (CFE) Initiative to promote the use of technology-neutral, carbon-free energy to decarbonise the energy sector.In line with this initiative, Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) commissioned this report to analyse the status and prospects of carbon-free energy in the electricity sector in G20 countries, and to provide policy recommendations to advance its progress.The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEi) jointly produced this report.
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Ensuring a Strong Labour Dimension for Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions
IEA Clean Energy Labour Council Workers play a critical role in the global energy system, providing key services across many areas of the energy sector. To give a greater voice to the labour perspective in energy and climate policy discussions, the IEA Executive Director, Dr. Fatih Birol, convened the Clean Energy Labour Council in 2022. The Labour Council brings together representatives of the world’s most important national trade unions and trade union confederations, as well as prominent thinkers on the topic, to foster engagement between the IEA, energy policy makers, and the labour movement.The IEA Clean Energy Labour…
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Critical Mineral Traceability for Energy and Economic Security Executive summary
…lagged demand, with processing and refining remaining highly concentrated. Risks from concentration materialised in 2025 as new export controls threatened the supply of materials critical to strategic and economically important industries.Recent years have seen a proliferation of new policies and strategies to address these security risks. Policy approaches differ across countries, reflecting variations in their strategic priorities. Producing countries tend to adopt policies that encourage domestic projects or enhance domestic oversight over use of mineral resources. Consuming countries, by contrast, have focused more on reducing concentration, enabling diversification and promoting responsible practices across global mineral supply chains, often through…
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Policy options to accelerate distributed solar PV in Ukraine
…level of decentralisation in power generation can also support Ukraine in meeting its long-term decarbonisation goals, as set out in the 2030 National Energy and Climate Plan and the 2050 Energy Strategy. This report explores the current policy landscape for distributed solar PV in Ukraine and outlines three potential policy options to accelerate the deployment of this technology. It focuses on expanding the capacity of distributed solar PV to achieve the modelled results from IEA report Empowering Ukraine through a Decentralised Energy System, which outlines a pathway to rebuild and modernise Ukraine’s power sector amid ongoing attacks on…
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COP28 Tripling Renewable Capacity Pledge 2025: Update
Tracking countries’ ambitions COP28: Tracking the Energy Outcomes Nearly 200 countries made major collective pledges on energy at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai with the aim of keeping the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C within reach. For the first time, governments set key goals to help meet this objective, including tripling global renewable electricity capacity by the end of this decade. In June 2024, the IEA published COP28 Tripling Renewable Capacity Pledge: Tracking countries’ ambitions and identifying policies to bridge the gap, which provided a global stocktake of renewable capacity plans to assess…
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7 certainties about energy for this age of uncertainty
ED commentary The energy sector, like many others, is contending with a blizzard of uncertainties, complicating the work of policymakers, business leaders and investors.Geopolitical twists and turns are straining long-established relationships and upending deeply held assumptions. The World Uncertainty Index, devised by economists from the IMF and Stanford University, has hit unprecedented levels in recent months.But in this time of flux, there are still some important trends that we can identify with some confidence. Here are seven that can help us keep our bearings: The world has entered the age of electricity Oil and gas will still…
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Gas Market Report, Q1-2026
Natural gas markets continued to rebalance in 2025. Global LNG supply returned to double-digit growth in the second half of the year, supported by the ramping-up of new LNG liquefaction projects in the United States, Canada and Africa. This strong growth is gradually easing market fundamentals and contributing to a more secure and resilient global gas market.Global LNG supply growth is set to accelerate further in 2026, fostering a stronger increase in natural gas demand, which is expected to reach a new all-time high. Although the LNG supply growth is reducing market tightness, geopolitical tensions and…
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Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 Innovation in mining, refining and recycling to promote diversification
…and emissions all along the supply chain. These innovations can help achieve various policy goals: improving security of supply, enhancing production and operational efficiency, boosting yield rates, lowering environmental and social impacts, and shortening project timelines. A range of emerging innovations hold the potential to transform mineral production. Examples include the lowering of energy and capital intensity of rare earths production by leveraging ionic adsorption clay deposits (IAC); boosting overall supply levels for lithium through the commercialisation of direct lithium extraction (DLE); reducing energy and emissions intensity for synthetic graphite production through novel technologies; accelerating exploration times with the use…
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Energy Efficiency Policy Toolkit
The Energy Efficiency Policy Toolkit is an interactive online tool that has been updated and expanded ahead of the 11th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency in Montreal, Canada. It aims to support governments in designing and implementing effective energy efficiency measures by combining policies across three core pillars: regulation, information and incentives. It also features a wide range of case studies, offering practical insights into the successful implementation of energy efficiency policies across diverse national and sectoral contexts.The Toolkit builds on earlier IEA work to advance energy efficiency policy. In 2022, the IEA introduced Policy Packages for Energy…
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IEA Guide to Reporting Energy Technology RD&D Budgets
This manual, developed by the International Energy Agency (IEA), provides comprehensive guidance for national experts responsible for reporting energy technology research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) budgets. It outlines the methodology and classification system used to collect and structure RD&D data across IEA member countries, ensuring consistency and comparability. The manual is divided into two main sections: fundamentals of RD&D budget reporting and a detailed classification of energy technologies. It defines RD&D in alignment with the OECD Frascati Manual and clarifies the scope of public and private sector reporting. It also provides instructions for completing the IEA…