Global Energy Demand Set to Accelerate – Five takeaways from IEA’s Global Energy Review 2025
Excerpt: Decrease in the carbon dioxide intensity of global GDP, which goes by the technical term, decarbonization of the economy.
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The International Energy Agency has just published its Global Energy Review 2025. In this post I share the five most important take-aways I see in the report. I encourage you to have a look at the full report for IEA’s interpretation of its top conclusions.
The rate of decarbonization over the period 2015 to 2024 is ~1.9% per year. THB readers heard about this first last August in a post where I compared decarbonization rates for countries around the world for 8 years prior to the Paris Climate Agreement to the 8 years following the Agreement.
As I concluded then, and as the IEA data indicates (note that the IEA does not discuss these implications) — there is no indication of any acceleration in the overall rate of global decarbonization since 2015, and in fact, since 1965.
Consider that to achieve an 80% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 implies a rate of decarbonization of 8.1% per year (for a 2.5% annual rate of GDP growth), far larger than the 1.9% since 2015 presented by the IEA.
Global climate policies have many consequences, but accelerating the rate of decarbonization is thus far not among them.
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- China and India dominate increasing energy demand, but demand increased everywhere except Japan;
- The US, EU, and Japan saw decreasing demand for coal, everywhere else saw an increase, notably China and India;
- Renewables1 met large parts of demand increase in the U.S. and China.
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The IEA explains:
Almost all regions saw an acceleration in the rate of electricity consumption growth in 2024 compared with the annual average from 2012 to 2022. Globally, electricity consumption increased by 1 080 TWh, nearly two times the annual average of the past decade.
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The IEA explains:
China was the leading driver of growth, accounting for almost two-thirds of global electric car sales in 2024. The country’s electric vehicle sales experienced an impressive annual growth rate of nearly 40%.
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- Nuclear Power has a Bright Future, Driven by China and Russia
Similarly, nuclear power has a bright future, with a notable increase in new starts over the past four years. China and Russia dominate the global nuclear market. The U.S. is totally AWOL.
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The IEA explains:
Globally, there were nine construction starts of nuclear reactors in 2024, 50% more than in 2023. When completed, they are expected to have a total capacity of 11 GW. China began construction of six nuclear reactors in 2024 (all of Chinese design) – one of the highest number of starts in the country ever and extending its market leadership in terms of construction. Pakistan began construction of one reactor in 2024, the first Generation III+ design of Chinese origin used outside of China. Egypt and Russia each began constructing one nuclear reactor in 2024, both of Russian design. . .
