Banning of all gas boilers from 2025 to reach net-zero emissions

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that no new fossil fuel boilers should be sold from 2025 onwards, to achieve net-zero emissions

It’s one of the 400 steps on the road towards net-zero proposed by the agency within a special report.

The selling of both new diesel and petrol cars around the world would be ending by the year 2035.

The IEA has said that from now on, there is no place for new coal, oil or for gas exploration and supplies.

This new report has been welcomed as an important contribution on the road towards COP26 in Glasgow, when countries will be attempting to agree that the measures are needed to put the Paris climate agreement into practice.

Within that context, tackling the key issue of how the world produces and consumes energy sources is the most critical endeavour.

According to the IEA, the energy sector, is the source of around 75% of all emissions of greenhouse gases that are driving up the global temperatures.

This comes after just 20 companies are the source of over half of all of the single-use plastic items that are thrown away globally. That’s the conclusion of a set of analysis of the corporate network that is behind the world’s single-use plastic production.

To keep the world safe, across the globe scientists say that global warming has to be limited to temperatures of 1.5C by the end of the current century.

To keep close to that goal, emissions of global warming gases need to drop by 50% by 2030, and essentially hit net-zero by 2050.

The IEA’s new study has set out what it believes to be a realistic roadmap in order to achieve this goal, while at the same time creating millions of jobs, as well as boosting worldwide economic growth.

By 2050 it envisions a new global economy that is twice as big as today, with two billion more people but with the demand for energy seeing a decrease by 8%.

The authors have said that their plan achieves this with no carbon offsets and a low reliance on technologies that can remove carbon from the air.

Crucially, it has seen no place for any new supplies of coal, oil or gas.

Steps to net-zero emissions by 2050

• Fossil fuel use falls drastically within the net‐zero emissions scenario by the year 2050, and no new oil and natural gas fields will be required beyond those that are already approved for development. No new coal mines or mine extensions will be required.
• Emissions from the generation of electricity fall to net‐zero within advanced economies by the year 2035 and globally by 2040. Renewables energy sources drive the transformation, up from 29% of generation within 2020 to nearly 90% by 2050.
• The number of public electric vehicle charging points rises from around 1 million today to around 40 million by the year 2030, which requires an annual investment of $90bn by the end of the current decade.
• By the year 2035, nearly all cars that are sold globally are electric, and by 2050 nearly all heavy trucks that are sold will be fuel cell or electric.
• Per capita, income generated by oil and gas in countries that rely on the production of fossil fuel falls by around 75% from $1,800 down to $450 by the 2030s.

However, the IEA’s route towards net-zero emissions will require massive investments and international co-operation to an unprecedented degree.

It will also have direct impacts to consumers across the world.

Home heating with both gas or oil is currently a major source of carbon emissions within many countries, responsible for around 20% of CO2 in both the US and the UK.

This comes after environmental conservationists have expressed their “anger” after a beached whale has been found with 16kg of plastic waste inside its stomach. The cetacean, which was a female Cuvier’s beaked whale measuring just over 5 meters in length, washed up on a beach in Messanges within south-west France.

The IEA path to net-zero says that in just four years’ time, there should be no new fossil fuel boilers sold, except where they are compatible with hydrogen.

This will not be an easy shift for the building sector.

“It will be very difficult, because it means a massive turn in the consumption behaviour,” said Maria Pastukhova, from the E3G environmental think tank.

“The building sector is maybe one of the toughest ones because aside from the emphasis that the IEA has put on efficient buildings, all the old existing infrastructure has to be retrofitted. And that’s a particular challenge for governments.”

The IEA says that as well as greening the energy system it will need to be expanded to provide electricity to the 785 million people in the world who have no access at present.