Global fossil fuel use to sink 65% by 2050
A net-zero world will reduce fossil fuel consumption by 65% by 2050 from 2021 levels, according to new modeling from Canada’s energy regulator published on Tuesday.
Canada Energy Regulator (CER) published a new report on Tuesday that included the regulator’s first look into Canada’s long-term energy future that assumes the net-zero scenario as a baseline.
If the world is indeed able to achieve its 2050 net-zero climate targets, global fossil fuel use will fall by 65 percent between 2021 and 2050, the new report said. This would trigger a freefall in global crude oil prices to as low as $35 per barrel by 2030, and as low as $24 per barrel by 2050, CER said.
For Canada specifically, this price scenario has Canada’s peak oil production just two years away and would curtail it to 1.2 million bpd by 2050—a figure that is one-quarter of what it was last year. This is just one of the CER’s proposed models, and one that assumes additional efforts will be made to reach Net-Zero by 2050.
CER proposed two other scenarios as well. The first of these scenarios assumes Canada reaches net-zero by 2050 but China and India don’t—sending oil prices to $60 per barrel through 2050. In that scenario, Canada’s oil production falls by 22 percent.
The other scenario assumes no efforts are made to reach net zero beyond what is already in place. In that case, Canada’s production would peak in 2035, and rise to 6.1 million bpd by 2050.
The report did not go into what steps should be taken to reach the Net-Zero goal, but CER chief economist Jean-Denis Charlebois told reports that it was a “very ambitious and challenging goal to meet for Canada,” adding that it would take “every industry, every province, everyone” to make a difference.
