全球能源转型展望2024—全球和区域预测至2050

ENERGY TRANSITION OUTLOOK 2024A global and regional forecast to 2050FOREWORDEmissions peaking is, of course, good news, and a milestone for humanity. However, since emissions are cumulative, we must now focus on how quickly emissions decline. Worryingly, our forecast decline is very far from the trajectory required to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Our ‘most likely’ energy transition described in the pages that follow is one that leads to warming of 2.2°C by the close of this century. If we want a faster transition, we must understand what is working and what is not. Firstly, solar PV and batteries are booming, growing faster than we previously forecast. In 2023, new solar installations globally surged by 80% to reach 400 GW. One of the reasons solar is gaining ground so fast is because battery prices are plunging, making 24-hour solar+storage power more accessible. Battery prices fell 14% last year, and they will keep on falling. That means that EVs are poised to become cheaper too. The world is therefore still on track towards our long-standing prediction that 50% of new passenger vehicle sales worldwide will be electric by 2031. Developments in solar and batteries are key reasons for emissions peaking. Owing to record EV sales in China, we are seeing petroleum demand there beginning to ebb away, while record solar instal-lations are finally edging out coal in China’s power sector. China’s achievements in the production and export of clean technology are positive for the global transition, but are also facing a tariff backlash. Fully protecting all homegrown clean tech supply chains may come at too high a premium that risks slowing progress on decarbonization significantly. Policymakers must strike an admittedly very difficult balance between national security, economic goals, and Paris Agreement ambitions. Meanwhile, investing in clean tech recycling systems and digitalization/AI for efficient energy production, transmission, and use are no-regret choices.Secondly, the transition is having difficulty with technologies for decarbonizing hard-to-electrify sectors, where market forces and policy are failing to address the challenges. Hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) are indispensable to a Paris Agreement aligned transition — or any transition that results in warming close to 2°C. Many of the first commercial hydrogen energy projects have experi-enced cost overruns or have been stopped amidst market uptake uncertainty.We have revised our long-term forecast for hydrogen and its derivatives down by 20% (from 5% to 4% of final energy demand in 2050) since last year. Without a meaningful carbon price and/or direct market- stimulating support, hydrogen will struggle to scale and move down a cost-learning curve. The same holds true for CCS where our current forecast is that investment in CCS during our entire forecast period will be less than the amount invested in solar and wind in 2023 alone. Policymakers should recall that th