The world is in the midst of the first "truly global energy crisis", the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its World Energy Outlook in October 2022.

It's multidimensional - it's about more than the world's reliance on natural gas from Russia. It's about global energy security, fuelling the transition to clean energy for the climate and the interconnection between the energy crisis and food security.

For the first time in a decade, the number of people without access to modern energy is growing, says the IEA. Some 75 million people who have only just got access to electricity may no longer be able to afford it, while 100 million people may need to return to cooking using biomass.

In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that meeting the Paris Agreement target of keeping warming to 1.5°C would require emissions to “peak before 2025 at the latest” and drop by 43% by 2030.

But addressing emissions also represents an opportunity for the green economy. Those industries helping the world shift to net-zero emissions could be worth $10.3 trillion to the global economy by 2050, according to sustainable development consultancy Arup and economics advisory firm Oxford Economics.

The challenge facing the energy sector today is how to redesign the entire system while maintaining an affordable, resilient supply that's sustainable for the planet.

Read the full article about global energy by Kate Whiting and Amy White at World Economic Forum.