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What Next for the Global Car Industry Executive summary
Fundamental shifts are reshaping global car markets The car industry is undergoing profound changes as electric car sales continue to rise and the geography of global car sales shifts. Global car sales approached 80 million in 2024 and have largely bounced back from their pandemic-related slump. Recent growth has been exclusively driven by sales of electric and hybrid cars, which made up around 30% of total car sales in 2024, while global sales of pure internal combustion engine (ICE) cars peaked in 2017 and have since fallen by 30%. By contrast, electric car sales grew more than 14-fold over…
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Outlook for Biogas and Biomethane Assessing the sustainable potential and cost of feedstocks for biogas and biomethane
Feedstock assessment This assessment considers over 30 types of feedstocks for biogases. They can be broadly grouped together as crop residues, animal manure, biowaste and woody biomass. We assess feedstocks that can be processed without direct competition with food for agricultural land or animal feed, and that do not have any other adverse sustainability impacts. Biogas and methane yields are key indicators of how suitable a feedstock is for energy production. Biogas yield refers to the total volume of gas produced from a feedstock through anaerobic digestion, primarily methane (CH₄) and CO₂. Methane yield, by contrast, accounts only for the…
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State of Energy Policy 2026 Climate pledges
The new round of NDCs does not imply stronger annual emissions reductions than the previous 2030 NDCs The past year marked a key milestone in the Paris Agreement’s ratcheting mechanism, under which countries update their climate pledges every five years. As of 27 March 2026, more than 130 countries had submitted new NDCs out of the 194 parties to the Paris Agreement that had previously submitted NDCs under the UNFCCC framework, with the vast majority setting new targets for 2035. In total, these submissions cover close to 75% of today’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.Some regions have not…
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Global Energy Review 2026 Coal
Global coal demand in 2025 grew moderately, remaining near 2024 levels Global coal demand in 2025 grew modestly above 2024 levels, rising by only 0.4%, an increase of around 30 million tonnes (or 0.7 EJ). This growth, which was in line with IEA estimates, was significantly below the 1.4% increase seen in 2024 and marked the end of the post-Covid rebound, with global coal demand growth slowing each year since 2021.Coal use in power generation diverged from recent trends in several regions around the world. In the United States, strong coal use in the power…
- Key findings
- Global trends
- Oil
- Natural gas
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+ 9 pages
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Nathaniel Lewis-George
Former Southeast Asia Programme Officer. Nathaniel Lewis-George supports IEA engagement through the Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP) with IEA Association Countries in Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore - as well as ASEAN. This includes project management, programme coordination and delivery, and strategic outreach and advice.
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World Energy Outlook 2022 An updated roadmap to Net Zero Emissions by 2050
Introduction In 2021, the IEA published its Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector, which sets out a narrow but achievable pathway for the global energy sector to reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, much has changed in the short time since that report was published.The global economy rebounded at record speed in 2021 from the COVID-19 pandemic, with GDP growth reaching 5.9%. As energy intensity improvements stalled, global energy demand increased by 5.4%. Surging energy demand was in part met by increased use of coal, resulting in a 1.9 gigatonnes…
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Breakthrough Agenda Report 2025 Power
State of the transition Emissions Global emissions from electricity generation rose by 1.2% in 2024 to around 13.9 Gt of CO2, following an increase of 1.6% in 2023.The global emissions intensity of electricity generation is on a contracting trend, with a record 3% reduction in 2024 compared to 1% in 2023. This improvement reflects the rapid growth in renewable energy and nuclear electricity production relative to rising demand. Cost On an levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) basis, renewables remained the most cost-competitive option for new electricity generation in 2024.Onshore wind remained the most affordable…
- Executive summary
- Power
- Hydrogen
- Road transport
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+ 4 pages
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Scaling Up Transition Finance Sectoral insights
Where can transition finance be applied? This chapter provides an analysis of investments that can be supported by transition finance in three important areas – heavy industry, critical minerals and natural gas – building on the preceding assessment of investments and providing illustrative cases and non-exhaustive key performance indicator (KPI) examples to underpin transition strategies.As with the investment amounts highlighted in Chapter 1 that can be supported by transition finance, inclusion here does not automatically render an activity eligible for transition finance, since such eligibility depends on meeting the relevant process requirements. Equally, the absence of an activity from this…
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Sheltering From Oil Shocks Oil use in industry
Industry accounts for around 20% of global oil demand. Two-thirds of industrial oil demand is used as feedstock in the chemicals industry. There are options that can bring down oil demand in industry, and some flexibility on which oil products are used as petrochemical feedstocks. 10. Leverage flexibility with petrochemical feedstocks and implement short-term efficiency and maintenance measures Description: The majority of petrochemical production capacity in Asia and the European Union can technically switch between different oil products – such as LPG, naphtha, ethane or gasoil – as a feedstock without requiring equipment modifications. Prioritising the processing of oil feedstocks…
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What it would take to unlock the next phase of hydrogen growth
Can hydrogen scale up successfully Global hydrogen demand reached 100 Mt in 2024, mainly from refineries, the production of chemicals and the iron and steel sector. Demand grew by almost 2% from 2023, in line with overall energy demand growth. This consumption was almost completely met with hydrogen produced from unabated fossil fuels, using 290 billion cubic metres of natural gas and 90 million tonnes of coal equivalent. However, alternative technologies that can produce low-emissions hydrogen have attracted a lot of interest from governments given their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify energy supply, particularly in countries that have a…