The clean energy future is within reach, Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, said after meeting with renewable energy representatives in India.
“I recently met with leaders from across India’s renewable energy ecosystem, listening to different perspectives from industry, finance, policy & civil society,” Guterres posted on X.
“The message was clear: The clean energy future is within reach – but we need a system-wide transformation to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels,” added the UN Secretary General, who has strongly advocated for years for renewable energy and for ditching fossil fuels.
In India specifically, coal demand could more than double by 2050 from current levels under current policies, a new report by NITI Aayog, the policy think tank of the Indian government, showed earlier this month.
Under the Current Policy Scenario (CPS), coal demand in India is forecast to rise even through 2070, according to the projections.
In this scenario, long-term demand could more than double to 2.615 billion tons by 2050, up from 1.256 billion tons in 2025, the think tank’s analysis found. If India keeps the current policies, coal demand will be higher even in 2070 compared to 2025 levels.
The share of coal is set to drop from 73% in 2025 to 47% in 2070, thanks to the rise of renewable energy.
Separately, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a recent report that global electricity demand is rising at the fastest pace in 15 years and will continue to do so at least until the end of the decade as AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and electrification have ushered in The Age of Electricity.
As demand grows, developers of new capacity, especially renewables and natural gas, face constraints in connecting to the grids, the agency said.
Today, global investments in grids are about $400 billion per year. If the world is to meet the expected growth in power demand through 2030, it would need to boost annual grid investment by about 50% from $400 billion, according to the IEA.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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