- BloombergNEF have released their New Energy Outlook 2025 report.
- Strong fundamentals underpin growth in renewables and EVs.
- Oil and coal face decline, though the speed is uncertain
The 2025 edition presents a new, updated base-case scenario and a deep dive into key trends affecting the energy transition in the next 10 years to support corporations, financial institutions and policymakers navigating the energy transition. This edition includes analysis on data-center power demand, changed policy assumptions in some key geographic areas, and updated cost estimates for both clean and fossil energy.
Oil demand in the report’s base-case ‘Economic Transition Scenario’ peaks in 2032 at 104 million barrels per day, with road fuel peaking a few years earlier. Demand ultimately drops to 88 million barrels per day by 2050 – a significant decline from today, but far from the drop required to get on track for net zero. Outside of road transport, oil consumption remains resilient, with a doubling of demand for aviation and strong growth in petrochemicals through 2050.
Coal demand in the Economic Transition Scenario falls rapidly as cost-competitive renewables and gas displace its use in the power sector. Natural gas is the only fuel that sees long-term growth. Global demand increases 25% from 2024 to 2050, reaching 5,449 billion cubic meters due to lower long-term fuel price expectations and higher electricity demand from data centers.
The base-case outlook contrasts sharply with the Net Zero Scenario from 2024, which sees gas demand dropping steeply in the near term and roughly halving by mid-century. There are thus highly divergent futures possible for natural gas, and its role in the energy transition will look very different depending on which kind of transition trajectory is in play in a given region.
Fossil-fuel demand by sector, Economic Transition Scenario
Global emissions set to begin their long descent
Energy-related CO2 emissions have risen globally in most years since the 1950s, but clean energy additions appear finally to have caught up with energy-demand growth. Our modeling indicates that 2024 may have been the peak year for emissions, meaning that 2025 could be the first year of structural emissions decline (excepting unusual years such as 2020 or 2009). While many individual advanced economies have already seen structural emissions declines induced by the growth of clean energy, this would be the first time such a moment has been observed at the global level.
CO2 emissions reductions from fuel combustion by measures adopted, Economic Transition Scenario versus ‘no-transition’ scenario and Net Zero Scenario
Link to download the full report HERE
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
