The International Energy Agency on Wednesday forecasted that global oil and gas demand may increase until 2050, which is contrary to its past assumptions of a rapid shift to cleaner fuels, and estimated that the world will probably meet climate targets.
The IEA, the West’s energy security watchdog, has been pressured by the U.S. in recent years to shift towards a cleaner energy policy focus as President Donald Trump urged American companies to continue increasing oil and gas production.
The IEA forecasted that the oil demand in the world will hit its peak in this decade under the Joe Biden administration and stated that the world would not require further investment in oil and gas to hit the climate target.
Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright has proposed that the IEA’s peak demand would be “nonsensical.” Therefore, the member countries contribute funds to the IEA, with the U.S. being the biggest contributor.
Its analysis and data inform the energy policies of governments and companies across the world.
In its annual World Energy Outlook released on Wednesday that the IEA forecasted under a current policies scenario that oil demand will reach 113 million barrels per day by the mid-century, an increase of approximately 13 percent from 2024 consumption.
It is forecasted that the world energy production will rise by 90 exajoules by 2035, 15 percent higher than today.
The present policy situation considers policies that are in place in the government and not the ambitions to meet climate targets.
The IEA last used the “current policies scenario” in its predictions in 2019 and changed to predictions more in line with a clean energy transition and commitments to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century in 2020.
Although the number this year dropped, the pledges scenario. The IEA reported that it had intended to score new country climate targets within 2031-2035; however, not all countries had already submitted their plans to create a meaningful image.
In this scenario, where policies formulated by the IEA but not necessarily implemented, the oil demand rises around 2030. The IEA states that its scenarios examine many possible outcomes based on different assumptions and are not predictions.
According to the report, final investment decisions regarding new liquefied natural gas ventures have risen in 2025.
Approximately 300 billion cubic metres of new annual LNG export capacity will commence operations by 2030, representing a 50 percent increase in supply available.
In the current policy environment, the world LNG market grows between 560 bcm in 2024 to 880 bcm in 2035 and 1,020 bcm in 2050 due to the increasing power sector demand as a result of data centers and AI development.
The report indicated that global spending on data centers will continue to rise to up to $580 billion in 2025, the report said, observing that in a way that will outweigh the $540 billion a year spent on oil supply globally.
A net zero scenario, which is a way of achieving net zero global energy emissions by 2050, is also included in the report.
At the climate negotiations in Paris in 2015, more than 190 states promised to do their best to ensure that the world does not warm by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
However, the report reveals the world will exceed 1.5 °C of warming in all the scenarios, only to go back down again in the net-zero scenario, should technology that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere be implemented.
