(www.MaritimeCyprus.com) The Energy Outlook is produced to inform bp’s views of the risks and opportunities posed by the energy transition and is published as a contribution to the wider debate about the factors shaping the future path of the global energy system. But the Outlook is only one source among many when considering the prospects for global energy markets and bp considers a wide range of other external scenarios, analysis and information when forming its long-term strategy.
This year’s Energy Outlook is focused on two main scenarios: Current Trajectory and Net Zero. These scenarios are not predictions of what is likely to happen or what bp would like to happen. Rather they explore the possible implications of different judgements and assumptions concerning the nature of the energy transition. The scenarios are based on existing technologies and do not consider the possible impact of entirely new or unknown technologies.
The many uncertainties surrounding the possible speed and nature of the energy transition means the probability of any one of these scenarios materialising exactly as described is negligible. Moreover, the two scenarios do not provide a comprehensive description of all possible outcomes. They do, however, span a wide range of possible outcomes and so might help to illustrate the key trends and uncertainties surrounding the possible development of energy markets out to 2050.
Global developments and events in recent years have highlighted the considerable challenges facing the global energy system and those of us who work within it. Despite marked increases in government climate ambitions and actions, and rapid growth in investment in low carbon energy, carbon emissions continue to rise. Indeed, other than the Covid-induced fall of 2020, carbon emissions have risen every year since the Paris climate goals were agreed in 2015.
The carbon budget is running out. The world is in an ‘energy addition’ phase of the energy transition in which it is consuming increasing amounts of both low carbon energy and fossil fuels. The history of energy has seen several past phases of ‘energy additions’, for example the rapid increase in coal as the world shifted from the use of wood as its primary energy source to coal, and later the sharp increases in oil as it displaced coal as the dominant energy form. But in each of these cases, the world continued to consume similar or greater amounts of all types of energy.
The challenge is to move – for the first time in history – from the current energy addition phase of the energy transition to an ‘energy substitution’ phase, in which low carbon energy increases sufficiently quickly to more than match the increase in global energy demand, allowing the consumption of fossil fuels, and with that carbon emissions, to decline. The longer it takes for the world to move to a rapid and sustained energy transition, the greater the risk of a costly and disorderly adjustment pathway in the future.
Explore more details, by clicking on below image to download the full report:
Source: BP
