APAC TIPPED TO LEAD GLOBAL ENERGY TRANSITION - WOOD MACKENZIE REPORT

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 (Bernama) -- The Asia Pacific (APAC) region is expected to maintain a 50 per cent share of global primary energy demand and a 60 per cent share of global carbon emissions until 2050, according to ‘Wood Mackenzie’s Asia Pacific Energy Transition Outlook (ETO)’ report.

According to a statement, this trend is unlikely to change without strong policy action and investment, but the region still has the potential to turn these challenges into opportunities and become a global leader in the energy transition.

This report is part of Wood Mackenzie’s ETO research series, which analyses three different pathways for the energy and natural resources sector.

Wood Mackenzie Vice President, Scenarios and Technologies Research, Prakash Sharma said every country in the APAC region is vastly different in terms of population growth, economic development, policy landscape, what natural resources they have and, more importantly, what they do not have will determine how they transition to a low-emissions pathway.

According to Wood Mackenzie’s base case scenario, the APAC electric vehicle (EV) stock is projected to rise from 24 million cars currently to a staggering 635 million units by 2050, in which this exponential growth would be driven by the affordability of EVs and the availability of resources in the region.

Furthermore, in Wood Mackenzie’s base case, low-carbon supply accounts for 35 per cent of power generation today, and it is projected to rise to 75 per cent by 2050, while the share of wind and solar increases to over 54 per cent.

This rapid growth in variable renewables is accompanied by adopting energy storage, hydrogen, small modular nuclear reactors, and geothermal technologies, with nearly 50 per cent of the world's new technology opportunities for low carbon emission will be in APAC, by 2050.

According to Wood Mackenzie, gas demand will continue to increase for 15 years in all scenarios, with growth in power and industry offsetting the long-term decline in buildings.

By 2050, gas demand is expected to grow from 890 billion cubic metres (bcm) to 1,285 bcm in the base case but fall to 655 bcm in the net zero scenario.

-- BERNAMA