-
What Next for the Global Car Industry The global car industry in context
Highlights Global car markets are undergoing potentially transformative changes. Car sales reached a high point in 2017 and have bounced back from a pandemic-related drop due to sales of electric and hybrid cars; sales of conventional cars have continued to fall. Growth has shifted to emerging economies including China since the turn of the century, with around half of all sales now in these regions. Global car production has grown unevenly since the pandemic. China’s car output reached a record 27 million in 2024, 30% higher than in 2019, while India’s output grew 30% to almost 5…
-
Global Energy Review 2026 Technology: Solar PV and wind
In 2025, global annual renewable capacity additions increased by 16%, reaching 800 GW despite challenges linked to supply chain strains, grid connection delays, financial pressures and policy shifts. This marked the 23rd consecutive year that renewables set new expansion records. Solar PV accounted for more than three-quarters of new renewable capacity additions worldwide, followed by wind (20%). The remaining share was made up by hydropower, bioenergy, geothermal, concentrating solar power and marine energy. Solar PV capacity additions in 2025 rose by around 12%, surpassing 600 GW for the first time. This expansion brought cumulative solar PV capacity to around…
- Key findings
- Global trends
- Oil
- Natural gas
-
+ 9 pages
-
Energy Efficiency 2025 Executive summary
Global energy efficiency progress sees improvement in 2025, but remains off track to meet global goal Global energy efficiency progress is set to improve by 1.8% in 2025, up from around 1% in 2024. Preliminary estimates indicate that several key regions are showing some signs of stronger progress compared to their average since 2019. For example, energy intensity progress in 2025 is estimated to be over 3% in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) and over 4% in India, well above their averages in the years since 2019. In the United States and the European Union (EU…
-
Energy and AI Understanding the energy-AI nexus
…come to dominate the stock market – notably in the United States, which hosts some of the world’s largest technology companies. From November 2022 – when ChatGPT launched – to the end of 2024, 65% of the growth in market capitalisation of the S&P 500 came from companies that either deploy AI or integrate AI into their core operations. That is, of the USD 16 trillion rise in market capitalisation of S&P 500 companies, USD 12 trillion came from AI-related companies alone. This period was marked by a surge in AI-related investor expectations before the recent volatility in financial markets. AI-focused start-ups in…
-
Renewables 2022 Renewable electricity
…of renewable energy. This year’s forecast has been revised upwards by almost 30% from last year’s despite energy market turbulence, mainly because China, Europe, the United States and India are implementing existing policies, regulatory and market reforms and new policies more quickly than expected to combat the energy crisis. China’s 14th Five-Year Plan and market reforms, the REPowerEU plan and the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are the foremost policy changes since our last forecast of December 2021. The forecast for most advanced economies is based on these countries’ ambitious targets and policy incentives, but implementation…
-
Electricity 2026 Flexibility
…grid or market signals.In exchange, DR plans offer financial incentives, typically through contractual arrangements or participation in programmes with utilities, aggregators or system operators, or by direct participation in power markets in the case of large industrial consumers. For end-users, DR flexibility contracts provide inducements in the form of direct payments, rebates, or bill credits for curbing consumption during high-priced, peak-demand periods. When deployed at scale, DR providers can reduce peak capacity requirements, defer grid investment, lower integration costs for renewables, and strengthen resilience during system stress (see IEA’s The Value of Demand Flexibility report…
- Executive summary
- Demand
- Supply
- Grids
-
+ 4 pages
-
Breakthrough Agenda Report 2025 Steel
State of the transition Emissions Total CO2 emissions remain largely unchanged from recent years, while direct CO2 emissions intensity has seen an uptick since 2021. Both must fall in the coming years to get on track with the IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario (NZE Scenario). Cost Blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) routes make up about 70% of global steel production today.Hydrogen direct reduced iron electric arc furnace (H2 DRI-EAF) routes are emerging as a preferred low-emissions option in certain regions. Early commercial plants using 100% hydrogen blends are estimated to cost 50…
- Executive summary
- Power
- Hydrogen
- Road transport
-
+ 4 pages
-
Energy Efficiency 2024 Executive summary
…net zero energy sector emissions by 2050, accelerating energy efficiency improvements can deliver over 70% of the projected decline in oil demand and 50% of the reduction in gas demand by 2030. This oil demand reduction, which would be roughly equivalent to total oil use in China in 2024, comes in large part from technical efficiency gains, such as improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles, and electrification, including switching to EVs. The reduction in natural gas demand related to efficiency, which would be more than Europe’s total natural gas use in 2024, comes largely from measures such as insulating…
-
Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 Overview of outlook for key minerals
…the energy sector. In the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), lithium grows fivefold from today to 2040, while graphite and nickel demand double. Demand for cobalt and rare earth elements also grows strongly, increasing 50-60% by 2040. Copper is the material with the largest established market, and its demand is projected to grow by 30% over the same period. Battery deployment in electric vehicles (EVs) and storage applications drives strong demand growth for these minerals. Meanwhile, expanding construction and the electrification of grids and industrial equipment are fuelling increased demand for copper. Growing demand for permanent magnets, particularly from EVs…
-
Breakthrough Agenda Report 2025 Power
…the region deliver ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), in addition to continued support for the COP 28 Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge.At the G20 Summit in Brazil in 2024, more than a dozen countries launched the Global Clean Power Alliance (GCPA) to speed up the deployment of low-emissions power generation. The GCPA Finance Mission was launched to close the financing gap in emerging markets and, in the lead-up to COP 30, the GCPA aims to define how high-quality investment planning can facilitate greater private sector investment.At COP 28, 200 countries made a landmark pledge to triple renewable…
- Executive summary
- Power
- Hydrogen
- Road transport
-
+ 4 pages