The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has said urgent action is needed to keep in line with the growing demand for electricity, which may require a $131trillion investment in renewable energy by 2050 to keep up. 

As per a report, the production of renewable electricity needs to increase eight times more than the current rate to be able to help with limiting global heating, reported The Guardian.

To cap the rising temperature, electricity needs to overtake fossil fuels as the dominant source of energy before 2050 according to IRENA’s outlook report. 

The director-general of IRENA said, “The recent trends show that the gap between where we are and where we should be is not decreasing but widening. We are heading in the wrong direction. We need a drastic acceleration of energy transitions to make a meaningful turnaround. Time will be the most important variable to measure our efforts.” 

The “window of opportunity” to achieve the Paris Agreement goals is closing fast. 

IRENA believes that the world will reach its peak gas demand in the next three years and that it has already passed the oil peak before the drop due to COVID-19. 

On the other hand, Shell, the oil and gas giant has predicted almost the opposite. It predicts that the demand for gas will grow until the mid-2030s before beginning to decline. 

An increase in the use of electricity could mean that electric power may make up just over half of the energy consumed by 2050, as compared to 21% in 2018. Fossil fuels makeup almost two-thirds of energy consumption in recent years but could be reduced to 10% by 2050.