October 25, 2023
The International Energy Agency on Tuesday released a stunning report about what the world’s energy systems will look like in just over six years. By 2030, it said, global demand for coal, oil, and gas will have already peaked. Fossil fuels will account for 73 percent of the world’s energy mix—down from 80 percent today. Three times as much investment will flow to wind and solar as goes to new coal and gas-fired power plants. And half of new car registrations in the United States will be electric vehicles.
That’s a relatively rosy scenario—and it would still leave the world on track to warm by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit), well above the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius. What’s more, the IEA notes that investment in fossil fuels is on track to be double what would be needed to make good on that commitment, “signaling a clear risk of protracted fossil fuel use that would put the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal out of reach.”
Fossil fuel executives seem hell-bent on sailing through that threshold as they (literally) double down on oil and gas production. Less than a month after ExxonMobil announced its intention to acquire Permian Basin driller Pioneer Resources for $60 billion, Chevron this week announced its own all-stock acquisition of Hess for $53 billion—the largest such deal in the company’s history.
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