By Vijay Jayaraj
The end is nigh – not for the world, but for the climate industrial complex. It has been a decline brought about mainly by the sheer reality of energy economics in the developing world.
Published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the “World Energy Outlook 2025” reads like an obituary for the fantasy of global decarbonization, acknowledging the undeniable truth that nations prioritizing prosperity must unapologetically embrace coal, oil and natural gas.
For years, the IEA and Western think tanks insisted that hydrocarbons were in structural decline, predicting a fatal drop in demand after 2030. Yet in the very document meant to track progress toward realizing an absurd net-zero objective, the IEA concedes that demand for oil and natural gas will continue to grow well beyond 2035 and may not peak until 2050.
The key insight of the IEA report is that emerging markets, excluding China, are becoming the primary drivers of growth in global energy consumption. This is a massive, structural shift. No longer will the trajectory of energy markets be dictated by the policies of Paris, Berlin or Washington but rather by the sovereign choices of nations whose citizens are desperate for better lives.
India is projected to see the fastest average increase in energy consumption among all emerging markets, rising by a robust 3% each year on average through the middle of the century. Oil and natural gas will meet a large percentage of this. India’s oil use is projected to jump from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2024 to 8 million by 2035 to match growth in aviation, vehicle ownership and the manufacture of plastics and chemicals.
But the real deal is India’s and Indonesia’s adoption of coal – until recently treated as a relic of the past. For the next 40 years, the dynamics of this fossil fuel will be shaped in the boardrooms of New Delhi and Jakarta.
The demand for coal by India’s industrial sector is projected to skyrocket by an astounding 60% by 2035. Nearly a quarter of new steel manufacturing globally is planned for India and Southeast Asia, with production in these regions to almost double by 2035.
Indonesia’s need for industrial coal is expected to increase by more than 45% over the same period. Factories, nickel smelters and chemical plants – the backbone of its manufacturing boom – are consuming more energy every quarter.
Perhaps the IEA’s most revealing figures are for growth in per capita electricity demand. India’s and Indonesia’s are to grow by 80% and 70%, respectively, by 2035.
These surges are driven by air conditioning, appliances, urbanization and relentless population growth. Power-grid extensions in Indonesia have almost doubled, adding nearly 1 million kilometers of new lines within a decade.
The IEA notes that India hit its 2030 target for non-fossil power capacity five years ahead of schedule, yet fossil fuels continue to provide the lion’s share of flexible and dispatchable generation. Why? Because so-called renewables remain intermittent, and only fossil fuels, along with nuclear power, can hope to guarantee the kind of reliability that industry requires and modern society expects.
For India and Indonesia – and many others – coal is a guarantor of industrial ascendancy; and it very well may prove to be a key ingredient in the development of data centers in the already tech-dominated cities of India.
For developing nations, the primary threats come from energy deprivation and economic stagnation, not ideological driven forecasts of a climate apocalypse. Serious leaders will not place their bets on unreliable technologies like wind and solar in pursuit of Western elites’ fanciful “carbon-free” utopia. Way too much is at stake.
This commentary was first published by American Thinker on November 17, 2025.
Image by Grok.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
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King Coal is still a merry old soul.
Oh, Old King Coal is a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul is he;
He calls for his stack,
and he calls for his scrub,
And he calls for his fiddlers three:
[Petro–oil, –gas, & –kerogen]
[Now] Every fiddler,
[he] has a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle has he;
Tweedle dee, tweedle dee go the fiddlers three,
And so merry we [all] shall be …
… past A.D. 2053
This site can always depend on Vijay Jayaraj to keep people abreast of the realities of energy demands related to population and economic growth, while reminding the Net Zero dreamers that their goal is a consistently receding mirage. The very fact that India and Indonesia are respectively the first and fourth most populous nations in the world and are determined to continue improving economic growth, living standards and exports should tell fantasy-world supporters of renewable energies and emissions controls where the priorities of those countries and ones like them really lie. So never mind anyone telling us of a climate crisis when it never existed from the beginning.
I agree the burning of fossil fuels isn’t the issue, the amount of fossil fuels we burn is. This is all determined by Growth;, Growth demands more of everything and if India and Indonesia are ever going to catchup their demand will increase.
But no politician is prepared to talk about GROWTH, I wonder why?
Probably for the same reason they aren’t prepared to talk about the price of cantaloupes in Afghanistan. It is of absolutely no relevance.
You may have some obsession with growth, but few others do. It’s been going on for a while.
Your correct and look where it has got us, be it good or bad, Growth and fossil fuels have got us to where we are. Tell me, are we any better off than society was two, three generations ago?
But the even more important question is can we keep going the way we are?
Yes, advanced / developed western countries absolutely can and should keep developing advancements in all the rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for their citizens –
But that requires ignoring the “deniers” of democratic governments’ prime and only responsibility of office –
continuous improvements in the freedoms, heath, safety, amenity, prosperity, well being of their citizens.
By way of contrast, countries governed by ideological (leftist) & religious cultures show no signs of aspiring or achieving the prime and only responsibility of office explained above.
Life expectancy way up. Standard of living, way up. Are we better off than 2 or 3 generations ago. Heck yes.
Can we keep going? If we can keep the socialists from mucking everything up, Heck yes.
Absolutely, and fantastically so. Anyone who has lived through those era will recognise that. Only people who haven’t, or are wilfully blind, could believe that it hasn’t got better.
And there’s still room for improvement, and we’re filling it!
The West? – Yes, but only if the fertility rate increases…
“Are we any better off than society was two,three, generations ago?”
Ask your question to the average person in India.
People can barely remember what the weather was like a month ago let alone what life was like 3 generations ago. At best we misremember what wonderful childhoods we had. What solution to the growth conundrum that seems to bother you do you propose?
Growth to Indians and Indonesians means something very different to how we typically have defined growth. To them it means not being poor. It means longer life spans. It means not living in hut villages. You can’t expect these people to sit back and just say, “Oh well. Guess we have to remain poor to save humanity.” The “sucks to be them” attitude has played itself out.
This said, politicians have delayed, for decades now, research in the only viable (long-term) replacement for coal, nuclear power. They do this because taking a very strong interest in nuclear doesn’t bolster their campaign cash, as wind and solar do.
EIA projects a doubling of nuclear power over the next 30 or so years. It could be double this if the politicians got out of the way. Delay tactics like “it’s too expensive” kicks the can down the road, something politicians and bureaucrats excel at.
Yes and Yes!
Jon,
Here in Australia politicians often talk about growth, but it is usually growth with negative benefits. Geoff S
When politicians talk about growth they mean growth of the bureaucracy —
No doubt your politicians’ personal wealth is growing. That’s their prime concern.
I think in your post are some points worth discussing.
However, your presentation seems to point in the wrong direction.
“But no politician is prepared to talk about GROWTH, I wonder why?”
Politicians need votes and votes come from people.
If the topic is really population growth, every politician will run away from any thing that could label them as in favor of eugenics.
Yes, Vijay is a very good writer. We are lucky to have his input.
So who got pushed out at IEA for this dramatic pivot back to reality?
No-one has discussed the winding back in the EV market by Western car manufacturers
All the big western car manufacturers GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Stellantis, Toyota and Honda have all shelved EV models and plans and will only expand there Hybrid models. The EV market will basically be Tesla and China.
UK mandate for EV car sales is 33% for 2026 up from this years 28% so we know one country that will definitely sell more EVs even if it sends all the car sellers broke 🙂
I think Tesla has been going the way of others recently. That leaves China to profit from the EV obsession of governments (not consumers).
It won’t be long before to aging EV fleet reaches the point where their batteries start failing and resale/trade-in values fall off a cliff. A glut of unsellable used EV will be a substantial deterrent to new EV purchases. Expect some spectacular bankruptcies.
If you search with the string ” old machinery with flowers growing out the top “, use images. One of the best is here:
flowers_growing_out_of_a_vintage_volkswagen_beetle_800.jpg (800×470)
I foresee a market for retro fitting them with V8s….
Rachel from accounts has just increased the cost of running an EV in the UK while simultaneously keeping tax rebates in place for buying a new EV. That looks like a terminal case of mixed messaging.
A humorous edit….
“That looks like a terminal case
of mixed messaging.”More good news, I hope India and Indonesia develope their power responsibly.
Indonesia ought to do very well in this environment as they have huge coal supplies.
There is a hugely successful triumvirate: fraud, abuse, and corruption, that, in 20 years, has shifted over 15 $trillion from the taxpayers of the world to the accounts of a privileged elite, just now jetting home from COP30. It is entirely probable that the wealth transfer will continue and enlarge, certainly in the short term. Not a penny will ever be recovered.
WHY? you may ask, and HOW? ‘Why’ is easy: greed knows no bounds. ‘How’ is equally obvious: The chief thieves are still in power; another triumvirate: the British, French, and German heads of state. Nothing has changed for them; they are riding high, as a silk bag, quickly disappearing in the fist of Macron, demonstrated. And, another useless triumvirate still has the full force of the above three politicians behind it: GW, CCUS, and IRE.
So, don’t you laugh when bankers fly over, for they alone are in the clover.
Apparently the Board at Tesla thinks if Musk doesn’t get another trillion in the next decade, he won’t be motivated to work. 🙂
This is a very selective reading of the document. Compare
“For India and Indonesia – and many others – coal is a guarantor of industrial ascendancy;”
with what the IEA says:
“Most global coal demand, 55%, comes from electricity generation in emerging market and developing economies, largely China. The outlook for global coal demand accordingly depends to a great extent on whether the current momentum on renewables is sustained. In the STEPS, renewables capacity additions average 620 gigawatts (GW) per year to 2035 in emerging market and developing economies, compared with 515 GW in 2024. This is sufficient to put global coal demand into a decline this decade. In the CPS, less policy support and higher assumed grid integration challenges result in slower renewables growth than in
the STEPS. As a result, coal demand is higher, peaks later and declines more slowly in the CPS. In both cases, however, global coal demand starts to fall before the end of this decade.”
So coal use is predicted to decline within the next 5 years which is a very different thing to being a “guarantor of industrial ascendancy”.
Key word –
“PREDICTED”
How’s that been working out for unreliables promoters?
Ah yes. But coal is a guarantor of industrial ascendancy. Renewables are not. That’s the difference that you fail to understand, I think.
Intermittent renewable energy (IRE) systems are being built as rapidly as possible before the GW assertion entirely collapses. IREs return less and less energy for larger and larger expansions. They are inefficient, intrusive, and irresponsible.
Germany, based on AGORA summaries, increased its IRE fleet by +53% from 1-2020 to 10-2024, returning only +15% in output. This trend will only get worse as IREs saturate, not to mention true climate disasters caused by their pervasive negative influences.
IEA, OWD, and other such ‘agencies’ lost their souls to Mammon long ago and talk out of both sides of their mouths.They manipulate plots, fudge data, disinform, and misinform. It is pure propaganda.
Coal consumption is a prime example. According to the compromised IEA, all fossil fuel use will disappear according to NZ 2050 plan, but if you check out the IEA Annual Outlook projection, they project the same percentage of fossil fuel-nuclear, attached, though 2040. The renewables which actually count are the old workhorses – hydroelectric and biomass. Wind and solar are valueless.
Only the West is gullible enough to accept the GW and IRE hogswallop. The East is far more rational and practical. They are eating our lunch as a result.
Thank you for including additional information from the IEA report.
I have not read it so I cannot comment if your selected excerpts alter the baseline context.
As a schoolboy approximately 50 years ago my Physics teacher talked to us about graphs and as an example of extrapolation showed us “peak Oil” and how we were very close to it.
I`m now past the age of retirement and have grown weary of this oft repeated failure story.
I was in high school about a decade before you, when Physics teachers just taught physics in accordance with the Scientific Method.
Then in the 70s teachers began believing it was their role to program young minds with particular “beliefs” in how subjects were to be approached.
Ideology could be suppressed no longer.
Are here we are . . .
I had a physic teacher in the 70s. His oft repeated quote:
“This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” (Hamlet)
The basic problem is people fooling themselves then taking the “righteous high road” to brainwash the uninitiated.
Sometimes the boy who cries wolf, gets eaten by a wolf.
Certainly tight oil and gas has prolonged the industry 30 years more than was predicted, but at the price of rising costs.
And for Europe, the geopolitical power given to Islamic countries and to Russia has been a political disaster.
No, there are many good reasons to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in countries that do not have them under their political control. Reasons that have nothing to do with CO2.
My science teacher in the 60’s, Bill Brewer an absolute treasure, would regale us with predictions that nuclear power would be everywhere and so cheap that it wouldn’t need metering. Unfortunately he failed to predict the blob which would strangle the miracle with regulations. At university soon after I read Ayn Rand and she filled in that gap in my knowledge. Good men with sound principles and intellect seldom prevail over second rate weasels who are good at snivelling into political power and wielding it for their own benefit.
I think the reality is that people are – after 40 years of alarmism that failed to actually come true – realising that the cost of reducing CO2 is almost certainly going to be higher than the cost of simply adapting to whatever the climate has to offer.
This simply renders the argument over the CO2’s role in climate change more or less irrelevant.
It simply doesn’t matter. The nature of the argument is about what is going to replace the ever diminishing supply and ever increasing cost of fossil fuels, especially in those regions, like Europe or Japan, which have precious little left under their political control at all.
And the renewable fraudsters know this. Lie after desperate lie emanates from their lobbyists as the more sober interests simply take one look and say ‘we need nuclear power, not windmills’
There is big money in IT, and IT needs lots of reliable power.
And given the international nature of the Internet,the IT will go where the cheap reliable power is.
So pop the popcorn in the microwave, crack a can of soda and sit down to watch the ‘energy wars’.
Should be a good show., The climate wars having basically lost the public’s imagination. (Sorry Anthony)
While it is certainly possible, perhaps probable, the the stores of coal and hydrocarbons will diminish to a critical threshold in some span of time, it is not immediate and does not require a step wise disruption of everything.
There is time to rationally develop new technologies to fill the gap and do so responsibly.
We are not, at present, faced with a tsunami alert.
Coal is not a fossil. Neither is petroleum or natural gas.
The name was coined a long time ago to influence pricing by making carbon intensive fuels sound rare.