EIA forecasts near 50% increase in world energy usage by 2050

In its International Energy Outlook 2019 (IEO2019), the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that world energy consumption will grow by nearly 50% between 2018 and 2050. Most of this growth is expected to come from regions where the consumption of energy is driven by strong economic growth, particularly in non-OECD Asia.

The EIA’s annual long-term assessment of world energy markets includes a reference case and four core side cases, which use different assumptions for the projections in each case.

‘Energy consumption was greater in Asia than in any other region in 2018, and we project that consumption will almost double between 2018 and 2050, making Asia both the largest and fastest-growing region in the world for energy consumption,’ says Linda Capuano, EIA Administrator. ‘This long-term trend of Asian energy consumption to support growing economies strongly influences the extraction, refining, and transport of oil, natural gas, and other fuels.’

IEO2019 also notes that global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from energy-related sources will continue to grow in the coming decades, rising 0.6% per year from 2018 to 2050 in its reference case. However, future growth in energy-related CO₂ emissions is not evenly distributed across the world – relatively developed economies collectively have no emissions growth, so all of the future growth in energy-related CO₂ emissions is among the group of countries outside the OECD. 

IEO2019 is available at https://www.eia.gov/ieo/