IEA’s 2024 World Energy Outlook highlights geopolitical risks and the urgent need for faster expansion of clean energy

According to the latest WEO, regional conflicts and geopolitical strains are adding to fragilities in today’s global energy system, emphasising the need for stronger policies and greater investments to accelerate and expand the transition to cleaner and more secure technologies.

The IEA has examined how shifting market trends, evolving geopolitical uncertainties, emerging technologies, advancing clean energy transitions and growing climate change impacts are all changing what it means to have ‘secure’ energy systems.

In particular, the report claims that current geopolitical tensions and fragmentation are creating major risks for energy security and for global action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The report’s projections indicate that the world is set to enter a new energy market context in the coming years, marked by continued geopolitical hazards but also by ‘relatively abundant’ supply of multiple fuels and technologies – which includes an overhang of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply coming into view during the second half of the 2020s, and an excess of manufacturing capacity for some key clean energy technologies, notably solar PV and batteries.