Context: A special report titled ‘Net Zero by 2050: a Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector’ has been recently designed by International Energy Agency to inform negotiators at the crucial COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.
Key highlights

• The report is a co comprehensive study of how to transition to a net zero energy system by 2050.
• The pathway to building a global energy sector with net-zero emissions in 2050 is narrow and requires an unprecedented transformation of how energy is produced, transported and used globally.
• Climate pledges by governments to date would fall well short of what is required to bring global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to net zero by 2050.
• It gives the world an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
• The roadmap lays out more than 400 milestones on the path to net-zero by mid-century.
• These include "no new oil and gas fields approved for development" beyond projects that are already committed as of 2021.
• A sharp decline in fossil fuel demand, meaning that the focus for oil and gas producers switches entirely to output – and emissions reductions – from the operation of existing assets.
• Sales of new internal combustion engine passenger cars would have to end in 2035 and energy efficiency would need to improve 4 percent annually this decade.
• With annual additions of solar and wind power reaching 630 and 390 gigawatts respectively by 2030, investment in renewables could put global GDP four percent higher by 2050 than it would be based on current trends.
• By 2050, renewables capacity and greater efficiency would see global energy demand drop about 8 percent compared to today, even as two billion more people gained access to electricity.
• Investment totalling around $40 billion a year is projected to hook hundreds of millions up to the global grid.
• Clean energy and access to clean cooking solutions could cut the number of premature deaths by 2.5 million a year by 2050.
• Overall, fossil fuels are set to account for only around a fifth of energy supply by 2050, down from almost four fifths currently.

Oil plateau

• Oil demand is predicted to plateau at around 104 million barrels a day just after 2030.
• Gas use is likely to increase significantly in the stated pledges pathway, as is nuclear.
• All inefficient coal power plants needed to close by 2030 in order to achieve net-zero by 2050.

The roadmap, with 400 milestones identified, promises to span all sectors and be technically feasible, cost-effective and socially acceptable.
The scenario is built on three principles

• Technology neutrality, with adoption driven by costs, technological readiness, country and market conditions and trade-offs with wider societal goals.
• Universal international cooperation, in which all countries contribute to net zero, with an eye to a ‘just transition’ and where advanced economies lead.
• An ‘orderly transition’ that seeks to minimise stranded assets ‘where possible’, while ensuring energy security and minimising volatility in energy markets.

In a nutshell, the IEA 1.5C Roadmap suggests the following on global electricity generation towards 2050:

• 714 per cent more renewables.
• 104 per cent more nuclear.
• 93 per cent less coal (and all remaining coal with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)).
• 85 per cent less natural gas (with 73 per cent of that with CCS).

Carrying along this pathway, the Roadmap models that almost 70 per cent of electricity generated will be from solar and wind, over 90 per cent of heavy industrial production is low emission and more than 85 per cent of buildings are zero carbon ready.
Road Ahead

• The world is facing a formidable task of transforming the energy sector within 30 years in a cost-effective manner, even as the world economy more than doubles in size and the global population increases by 2 billion people.
• The need for the world to reach NZE by 2050 lies in the major interim steps that need to be taken through 2030 — to engineer cheap and green energy from hydrogen and renewable energy while making them accessible to all.