This outlook highlights climate-safe investment options until 2050, policies for transition and specific regional challenges. It also explores options to eventually cut emissions to zero.

The Global Renewables Outlook shows the path to create a sustainable future energy system. This flagship report highlights climate-safe investment options until 2050, the policy framework needed for the transition and the challenges faced by different regions. As the world seeks durable economic solutions, accelerated uptake of renewables promises to drive sustainable development, boost well-being and create tens of millions of new jobs. This comprehensive analysis from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) outlines the investments and technologies needed to decarbonise the energy system in line with the Paris Agreement. It also explores deeper decarbonisation options for the hardest sectors, aiming to eventually cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to zero. Raising regional and country-level ambitions will be crucial to meet interlinked energy and climate objectives. The report presents findings on the specific transition prospects for ten regions around the world. Comprehensive policies could tackle energy and climate goals alongside socio-economic challenges, fostering the transformative decarbonisation of societies.

This study presents options to speed up the deployment of wind power, both onshore and offshore, until 2050. It builds on IRENA’s global roadmap to scale up renewables and meet climate goals.

This study presents options to fully unlock the world’s vast solar PV potential over the period until 2050. It builds on IRENA’s global roadmap to scale up renewables and meet climate goals.

The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

The energy transition is fundamentally transforming geopolitics, with renewable energy and other decarbonization options reshaping existing energy markets, trade flows, and energy security strategies. What new opportunities and challenges await us? Will it pacify global energy relations or bring a perilous transition?