An all-time accelerated transition is emerging throughout the globe, also in Europe evidenced by solar and wind generation outstripping coal and gas for the first time while the continent sets new records for wind/solar build out.

A delayed scenario forecasts that, despite geopolitical tensions and conflicts, the rate of renewable growth continues albeit on a path towards 2.4 of global warming

While capacity increases, the costs of key clean tech will continue to decline on average at a rate of -25% for solar, -20% for onshore wind and -5% for offshore from today to 2030 thus accelerating the transition towards net zero.

While RES will reach 87% of the EUs power generation mix by 2050, coal demand will soon be in structural decline globally with oil and gas reaching the peak around 2030 or sooner in all scenarios.

Electricity consumption in the EU will increase by more than 200% by 2050 as electrification of transport, buildings and industry cuts emissions and is increasingly competitive, while final energy consumption decreases in the Green Transition Scenario even as economy increase.

Accelerated emission reductions of end use sectors continue to represent a significant challenge with almost 60% of the remaining CO2 emissions coming from industry, buildings and transport:

• Buildings: electrification is the main solution to emission reductions, together with energy efficiency and behavioural change. Despite heat pumps being close to competitive in price, transformation of the heating system is slow.
  
  
• Transport: passenger cars go electric. Electricity share of transport increasing from 2% to 70% while oil share drops from more than 90% to below 2% in our European Green Transition Scenario to 2050.
   
• Industry: electricity use is increasing across scenarios. The last emissions are costly, difficult and require policy push to materialise.
  
  
• Hard-to-abate-sectors: emission cuts in long distance transportation and some industries (steel, cements, chemicals) remain particularly challenging. These sectors need a mix of solutions and more policy push.

There are several additional developing technologies that are forecast to play an increasingly pivotal role in supporting the energy transition, particularly for hard-to abate industries. This includes hydrogen, biogas, carbon capture and storage and carbon removals.

Transforming to more weather dependent energy systems is a challenge, but it is manageable. It will require the parallel build out of numerous flexible solutions, such as batteries, flexible hydropower, smart and flexible demand and high interconnectivity across markets.