Global Energy Demand Rose in 2024, but Most Additional Need Was Met by ‘Low-Emissions Sources’: IEA Report

Global temperatures caused the world’s energy demand to rise at a faster-than-average pace in 2024, with increased renewables and natural gas supplying most of the additional energy needs, according to the Global Energy Review 2025 from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Following years of declines, energy consumption in advanced economies went up again, driving increased demand for renewables, gas, nuclear and coal, a press release from IEA said.

“There are many uncertainties in the world today and different narratives about energy – but this new data-driven IEA report puts some clear facts on the table about what is happening globally,” said Fatih Birol, IEA’s executive director. “What is certain is that electricity use is growing rapidly, pulling overall energy demand along with it to such an extent that it is enough to reverse years of declining energy consumption in advanced economies. The result is that demand for all major fuels and energy technologies increased in 2024, with renewables covering the largest share of the growth, followed by natural gas. And the strong expansion of solar, wind, nuclear power and EVs is increasingly loosening the links between economic growth and emissions.”

The report was based on the most recently available data, and covers energy demand, supply, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and the use of new energy technologies.

Last year, the world’s demand for energy rose by 2.2 percent, which was lower than the 3.2 percent growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP), but faster than the average yearly increase in demand of 1.3 percent from 2013 to 2023.

More than 80 percent of the jump in energy needs worldwide came from emerging and developing economies, except for China, where the rise in consumption was less than three percent.

Advanced economies’ energy demand grew by nearly one percent overall.

The power sector led global energy demand growth last year, with electricity consumption surging by almost 1,100 terawatt-hours — 4.3 percent — or nearly twice the annual average during the last decade.

The steep increase was driven by extreme heat worldwide, which ramped up demand for cooling, as well as by industry consumption; the growth of artificial intelligence and data centers; and the electrification of transportation.

“Record temperatures contributed significantly to the annual 0.8% rise in global CO2 emissions to 37.8 billion tonnes. But the deployment of solar PV, wind, nuclear, electric cars and heat pumps since 2019 now prevents 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2 annually, the equivalent of 7% of global emissions,” the press release said.

Installed renewable power capacity rose to roughly 700 gigawatts in 2024, a new yearly record for the 22nd year in a row. Additions of nuclear power capacity climbed to their fifth highest level over the last three decades. These led to renewables and nuclear power providing 80 percent of the growth of global electricity generation, and, for the first time, 40 percent of the world’s total energy generation. Natural gas generation also increased.

“Nearly all of the rise in electricity demand was met by low-emissions sources, led by the record-breaking expansion of solar PV capacity, with further growth in other renewables and nuclear power. Gas demand also picked up substantially, while oil and coal consumption increased more slowly than in 2023,” the report said.

Oil demand saw slower growth, with a 0.8 percent rise last year. Oil made up less than 30 percent of total global energy demand for the first time, 50 years after peaking at 46 percent.

EV sales went up by more than 25 percent, accounting for a fifth of cars sold around the world.

“This contributed considerably to the decline in oil demand for road transport, which offset a significant proportion of the rise in oil consumption for aviation and petrochemicals,” the press release said.

Coal demand increased by one percent last year, half the rate of the year before. The IEA said intense heat waves in India and China caused more demand for cooling, which contributed over 90 percent of the total increase in the world’s coal consumption for the year.

“[I]f global weather patterns in 2023 had repeated in 2024, around half of the increase in global emissions would have been avoided. At the same time, the continued rapid adoption of clean energy technologies is limiting emissions growth, according to new analysis – avoiding 2.6 billion tonnes of additional CO2 emissions per year,” the report said.

Carbon emissions from advanced economies dropped by 1.1 percent to roughly 12 billion tons in 2024 — a level not seen in 50 years. This occurred even though the nations’ cumulative GDP is now three times as large.

As mentioned above, most of last year’s emissions growth was from developing and emerging economies besides China. However, China’s emissions growth slowed in 2024, while its per-capita emissions are currently almost twice the global average and 16 percent higher than those of advanced economies. 

“From slowing global oil demand growth and rising deployment of electric cars to the rapidly expanding role of electricity and the increasing decoupling of emissions from economic growth, many of the key trends the IEA has identified ahead of the curve are showing up clearly in the data for 2024,” Birol said.