The World’s Top Energy Agency Is Pressing for Aggressive Carbon Cuts

The world’s most authoritative body of energy analysts, the International Energy Agency, has found in its annual flagship report that the world is headed toward global warming higher than the Paris Agreement’s most aggressive limit of 1.5°C. The agency, long known for its expertise in fossil fuels, lays out a path for countries to move toward using more renewable energy on an aggressive timeline. Getting fossil fuels substantially out of the energy system, it says, would cost 25% more than the $54 trillion the world is already expected to invest by 2040.

In its 2020 World Energy Outlook, the IEA breaks with an approach to energy projections that has long drawn criticism for underestimating the rise of renewables and accelerating climate emergency.