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Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa Executive summary
Clean cooking access is a defining challenge for Africa’s prosperity and social development The world has made immense progress in improving access to clean cooking facilities, but to date momentum has been slower in Africa. Today, 2 billion people worldwide – a quarter of the global population – still cook over open fires or on basic stoves, inhaling harmful smoke and spending hours in search of fuels such as firewood or animal waste. Since 2010, almost 1.5 billion people in Asia and Latin America gained access to modern cooking stoves and fuels, halving the number of people without clean cooking in…
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Gas Market Report, Q3-2025 Executive summary
Following a slowdown in 2025, global gas demand growth is forecast to accelerate in 2026 Global natural gas demand returned to structural growth in 2024 and continued to expand in the first half of 2025, albeit at a markedly slower pace. Growth was primarily concentrated in Europe and North America, with adverse weather leading to stronger gas use in the buildings and power sectors. In contrast, gas demand was subdued in Asia, with both China and India recording demand declines in the first half of 2025. Market fundamentals remained tight in the first half of 2025 due to a combination…
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The Value of Demand Flexibility Executive summary
With global electricity demand rising and set to add around 1 000 TWh each year until 2035, new ways of managing the balance between supply and demand are needed. Demand flexibility – the ability to adjust the timing or amount of electricity use in response to system needs – is central to help achieve this balance. Advances in digitalisation, including the growing use of AI tools, are further enhancing the ability to deploy flexibility effectively.This policy brief, part of the 3DEN Initiative, presents a concise framework for understanding demand flexibility and its value across the energy system, highlighting that it can:Enhance power…
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Renewables 2022 Renewable heat
Recent trends and policy update Heating is the world’s largest energy end use, accounting for almost half of global final energy consumption. Industrial processes are responsible for 53% of the final energy consumed for heat, while another 44% is used in buildings for space and water heating and, to a lesser extent, cooking. The remainder is used in agriculture, primarily for greenhouse heating. The heating sector is largely dominated by fossil fuels, with renewable energy sources meeting less than one-quarter of global heat demand in 2021 (and the traditional use of biomass makes up half this amount).With…
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Global Energy Review 2026 Key findings
All major energy fuels and technologies grew in 2025 – but at very different rates. Overall global energy demand growth slowed to 1.3%, just below the average for the previous decade. Slower economic growth and slower growth in energy-intensive industries in some regions, lower cooling demand, and faster efficiency improvements all contributed to slower demand growth.Solar PV, the largest single source of growth, met more than 25% of higher demand, followed by natural gas, which contributed 17%. This was the first time on record that a modern renewable source contributed the largest share of global energy demand growth…
- Key findings
- Global trends
- Oil
- Natural gas
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+ 9 pages
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China’s Official Energy Finance in Emerging and Developing Economies Dashboard
Overview The dashboard provides an interactive view of Chinese official-sector financing for energy across EMDE, enabling users to explore project-level data by year, recipient country or region, technology, instrument, provider type and currency (when applicable). Developed to bring greater understanding of China’s diverse financing channels, the dashboard allows users to filter and compare flows in either USD (2024, MER) or by project count. It is designed to complement the analysis in this report and to support deeper understanding of how different institutions and instruments shape China’s role in EMDE energy finance.Use the filters to explore…
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Sodium-ion battery momentum grows, but challenges remain
batteries commentary sodium batteries Recent technological advances and investment announcements suggest dynamics are shifting for sodium-ion batteries Sodium-ion batteries are emerging as a new player in battery markets, offering opportunities to diversify battery chemistries and supply chains at a time of rising global demand for electric vehicles and energy storage. Developed in laboratories since the early 1980s, sodium-ion batteries operate on the same fundamental principles as lithium‑ion batteries – which currently dominate the market – yet their path to commercialisation has been markedly slower.While lithium-ion batteries entered commercial use in the 1990s – with the first electric vehicles…
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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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Renewables 2021 Renewable heat
Recent trends Global progress on conversion to renewable heat has been limited Heat is the world’s largest energy end use, accounting for almost half of global final energy consumption in 2021, significantly more than electricity (20%) and transport (30%). Industrial processes are responsible for 51% of the energy consumed for heat, while another 46% is consumed in buildings for space and water heating, and, to a lesser extent, cooking. The remainder is used in agriculture, primarily for greenhouse heating. Global heat demand declined by 2% in 2020, primarily due to the curtailment of economic activity as a result of…
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Christian Zinglersen
Former Head of the Clean Energy Ministerial Secretariat.
