Source: Even the International Energy Agency Says to Stop New Fossil Fuel Projects | The New Republic

Even the International Energy Agency Thinks It’s Time to Stop Drilling New Oil Wells

The IEA was founded by Henry Kissinger. It’s not run by radicals.

KATIE SCHUBAUER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A bombshell new 227-page report from the International Energy Agency on paths to avoiding climate catastrophe doesn’t mince words: “Beyond projects already committed as of 2021,” its authors write, “there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway, and no new coal mines or mine extensions are required.” Put simply, the Paris-based intergovernmental organization declares—in big, bold text—what for American politicians is unthinkable: “There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply.” Drillers, the IEA suggests, will have to rely on “existing assets.”

This isn’t a group of lefty climate activists making the case for a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels but a body founded by Henry Kissinger to provide a geopolitical counterweight to OPEC. Environmentalists don’t even consider IEA particularly friendly to their cause—energy wonks routinely describe IEA scenarios as severely underestimating renewables. Fossil fuel companies have pointed to IEA estimates as proof that their core business model can continue indefinitely. But now, the IEA is pointing to policies more ambitious than some of the most ambitious climate plans on offer in Washington, D.C.

The scenario the IEA proposes to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) involves getting oil investments in the next decade to roughly half of what they were between 2011 and 2020. Oil demand under the IEA’s net-zero scenario would decline 75 percent, and “unabated” gas—burned in plants not fitted with some kind of carbon-scrubbing device—would decline by 88 percent through 2050, along with 98 percent of unabated coal use. The remaining roughly one-fifth of fossil fuel usage by 2050 would largely power heavy and hard-to-decarbonize industries like steel, with solar and wind meeting 70 percent of energy demand. Renewables overall would increase by well over 700 percent. No internal combustion vehicles would be sold anywhere on earth by 2035, at which point wealthy economies will have power sectors run on clean energy.