Green energy investment will reach $11tr by 2050 as costs decline, with around half of all energy coming from renewables.

The predictions are made in the BloombergNEF (BNEF) annual New Energy Outlook report, with wind and solar set to grow to 56 per cent of global electricity supply in 2050, and an emissions peak in 2027 after which they will fall 0.7 per cent annually until 2050.

However, even such dramatic investment would still leave global warming running over the 1.5C limit.

“The next ten years will be crucial for the energy transition,” Jon Moore, BNEF’s chief executive officer, said citing accelerated deployment of wind and solar and faster consumer uptake in electric vehicles as some of the crucial areas over that period.

In the energy mix, BNEF predicts that gas will be the sole fossil fuel that increases in use, whilst coal and oil will decline with primary oil consumption peaking in 2035 and then gradually declining. The accelerating adoption of EVs and hydrogen will see petrol and diesel use declining even earlier, from 2031, as legislation and reducing ownership costs will make a rapid transition in personal transport.

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