PC: CNBC

According to the International Energy Agency, sales of electric vehicles are expected to reach a record high this year, but more has to be done in other industries to put the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050.

While noting that there had been “encouraging signals of progress across a number of sectors,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that “stronger efforts” were needed to put the world “on track to achieving net zero emissions” by the middle of this century.

The annual report TCEP examined 55 components of the energy system. It examined these elements’ development with a focus on 2021 in order to achieve “important medium-term benchmarks by the end of this decade,” as stated in the Paris-based organization’s net-zero plan.

The IEA reported that global EV sales had doubled in 2021 to account for close to 9% of the global auto market. A new record for electric car sales was predicted for 2022, when they would account for 13% of all light duty vehicle sales worldwide.

The IEA has previously predicted that 6.6 million electric vehicles will be sold by 2021. Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) reached 2 million in the first quarter of 2022, a 75% increase from the same period in 2021.

In its net-zero by 2050 scenario, the IEA claimed that both EVs and lighting, where more than 50% of the global market is currently employing LED technology, were “completely on track for their 2030 goals.”

IEA separately stated that EVs were “not yet a worldwide phenomena” despite the expectation for them. Sales have been sluggish in poor and emerging nations as a result of greater buying costs and a lack of available charging infrastructure.

The rest of the picture is more difficult overall. The IEA reported that 30 regions still need work and that 23 were “off track.”

The improvement of building energy efficiency, the creation of clean and efficient district heating, the phase-out of coal-fired power generation, the elimination of methane flaring, the conversion of aviation and shipping to cleaner fuels, and the improvement of cement, chemical, and steel production are among the areas that the IEA identified as being off track.

The 2015 Paris Agreement casts a long shadow on the IEA study. The agreement seeks to “reduce global warming to well below 2, preferable to 1.5 degrees Celsius, relative to pre-industrial levels,” according to the UN, which calls it a “legally enforceable international treaty on climate change.”

It is believed that reducing human-caused carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2050 will be essential to achieving the 1.5 degree Celsius objective.

The executive director of the IEA, Fatih Birol, sounded cautiously optimistic in a statement released on Thursday. The new global energy economy is advancing quickly, there are more indications than ever, he said.

This confirms my conviction that the current global energy crisis can lead to the development of a cleaner, more cost-effective, and more secure energy system, he continued.

But this new IEA research demonstrates the need for more concerted efforts across a number of technologies and industries to guarantee that the world can achieve its energy and climate goals.

The release of the IEA report coincides with a heated discussion and debate about achieving climate objectives and the direction of the energy industry.

The U.N. secretary general stated this week that industrialised nations should levy an additional tax on the profits of fossil fuel companies, with the money going to countries suffering from climate change and people facing a cost-of-living problem.

The fossil fuel industry, according to Antonio Guterres, is “feasting on hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and windfall profits as households’ budgets contract and our planet burns,” in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.