Energy demand will be reduced by 5% this year and CO2 emissions by 7% as a result of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which will have lasting effects and change trends for the next decade.

These are the main estimates of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which, in its annual outlook report, published on Tuesday, presents four different scenarios in the context of many uncertainties related to recovery and the possibility of developing policies to accelerate the energy transition, according to EFE.

In the closest scenario for 2020, when investment in the energy sector will collapse by 18%, the IEA estimates that global oil consumption will fall by 8%, coal by 7% and natural gas by 3%, while renewable energy will register a slight advance, according to Agerpres.

The lower contribution of fossil fuels will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which will return to the level of a decade ago, although pollution will not decrease to the same extent as methane, another greenhouse gas.

If before the pandemic the agency estimated an increase in energy demand of 12% over the period 2019-2030, now it has revised down this percentage to 9%, if the global economy returns to pre-crisis levels in 2021, and at 4% if this does not happen by 2023.

In both scenarios, the increase will focus on the production of electricity from renewable sources (80% of the total by 2030) and, in particular, on solar energy, whose generation costs are now already lower in many countries compared to those of coal and gas power plants.