COP26 – time to get real about fossil fuels

With just 29 years to go to the 2050 target date, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has done a great service in making a stab at the scale of the changes needed to tackle climate change. Assuming an 8% fall in global energy demand, and 2 billion more people, it projects a fall in the use of fossil fuels, from 80% of world energy to just 20%, including the almost complete eradication of coal, a reduction of around 75% for oil, and 55% for gas. Putting aside the fantasy that we can accommodate 2 billion more people, and all the economic growth that our leaders assume, and actually reduce energy consumption, the facts are that oil demand is going up, gas demand is going up, and coal is continuing to provide a great deal of the energy mix in South East Asia and elsewhere, with China building more new coal power stations than the US and the EU are closing. Whilst campaigners get their teeth stuck into the independent Western oil and gas companies, the big numbers are all about Russia, Saudi Arabia and China. None of these is doing anything remotely required for global net zero in the next 29 years. It is these facts on the ground that COP26 needs to get real about, rather than simply trot out the usual stuff about the great targets world leaders are signing up to, and all the cake-ism beloved of the British PM.