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China’s Official Energy Finance in Emerging and Developing Economies Case 3. Saudi Arabia’s first green full-process heavy plate mill project
Project overview and impact Saudi Arabia is pursuing an ambitious industrial transformation under Vision 2030, including efforts to localise heavy industries, expand low-carbon manufacturing and diversify export capacity. Steel demand is expected to grow steadily due to investment in hydrogen, ammonia, shipbuilding, offshore engineering and large-scale infrastructure. However, the country currently imports nearly all of its heavy plate steel, and domestic production has lagged the needs of an economy shifting towards more capital-intensive sectors and cleaner industrial processes.A new heavy-plate complex developed jointly by China Baowu Steel Group, Saudi Aramco and the Public Investment Fund…
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Energy Efficiency 2024 Executive summary
A year on from the historic agreement to double global energy efficiency progress, the world is not yet on track to achieve it At the COP28 summit at the end of 2023, nearly 200 countries reached a landmark agreement to work together to collectively double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030. This was the strongest recognition yet by governments of energy efficiency’s central role in clean energy transitions, providing an important focal point for greater national ambition and accelerated action. A year on from this historic agreement, however, this has yet to translate into faster…
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Global EV Outlook 2025 Electric vehicle batteries
Trends in battery demand Global battery demand for the energy sector hit the 1 TWh milestone in 2024 Electric cars remain the main driver of battery demand, but demand for trucks nearly doubledBattery demand in the energy sector, for both EV batteries and storage applications, reached the historical milestone of 1 TWh in 2024. Demand for one average week alone in 2024 exceeded the total demand for an entire year just a decade earlier. Demand was largely driven by growth in EV sales, as demand for EV batteries grew to over 950 GWh – 25% more than in 2023. Electric cars remain the…
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Energy Efficiency Policy Toolkit Transport
Introduction Private cars and vans were responsible for more than 25% of global oil use and around 10% of energy-related CO2-emissions in 2023. Doubling global annual energy intensity improvement by 2030 would require the efficiency of cars to improve by 5% each year. An integrated policy approach combining regulation, information and incentives is the most effective way to achieve this goal.Regulations such as fuel economy standards and heavy-duty vehicle standards encourage manufacturers to introduce more efficient vehicles, thereby significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Countries with regulations and/or efficiency-based purchase incentives in place improve efficiency…
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Powering Ireland’s Energy Future Executive summary
Ireland faces strategic choices to align its energy, climate and socio-economic goals through 2035 Over the next decade, decision makers in Ireland will need to balance a range of trends and policy ambitions that have strong implications for the power sector. Ireland has set a range of policy goals spanning the next decade, from improving energy security by reducing its reliance on imported fossil fuels, to meeting its climate targets, expanding its housing stock, and supporting the growth of digital infrastructure such as data centres. These ambitions all have strong links to the country's power sector, with implications…
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Gaining an Edge Summary for policymakers
Energy efficiency delivers more than energy savings and emission reductions – it can also improve the competitiveness of countries and firms. From increased profitability to job creation, energy efficiency helps firms compete amid high costs, growing demand, and rising trade pressures. In today’s global context, energy efficiency is not only a matter of energy policy, but also of economic policy.Today the world’s industries can produce nearly 20% more value for a given amount of energy than they could two decades ago. This progress has yielded significant benefits at the country level. G20 countries have doubled their economic output…
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Global Hydrogen Review 2026 Progress summary dashboard
Production Electrolysers Policies Investment
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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…
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Global Hydrogen Review 2025 Production highlights
Highlights Hydrogen production reached almost 100 Mt in 2024, but less than 1% was based on low-emissions hydrogen technologies. Based on announced projects, low-emissions hydrogen could reach 37 Mtpa by 2030, a reduction from the 49 Mtpa estimated in the Global Hydrogen Review 2024 (GHR-24).More projects are reaching final investment decision (FID), although the total production capacity reaching this stage in 2024 remained at the same level as in 2023. Persisting technical and regulatory barriers, financial obstacles and challenges in securing reliable offtake, in particular, continue to delay and occasionally completely stall project progress.Despite announced delays and cancellations…
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Sheltering From Oil Shocks Air transport fuels
Jet fuel demand accounts for around 7% of global oil demand. Jet fuel markets look to be particularly vulnerable to an extended loss of Middle East production and exports, given limited flexibility elsewhere to increase output. 8. Avoid air travel where alternative options exist Description: Travel for work accounts for a large share (between 20% and 40%) of aviation activity. In many cases, travel for work can be temporarily substituted by virtual meetings. A reduction of around 40% of flights taken for work purposes is feasible in the short term, while maintaining productivity.Impact: Very high voluntary participation to work…
