Rhodium Climate Outlook 2024: Probabilistic Global Emissions and Energy Projections

The first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement, which concluded one year ago, cautioned that the world was not on track to keep warming well below 2°C of temperature rise and called on countries to come forward with ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for reducing greenhouse gas emissions for the coming decade. It encouraged countries to set economy-wide emission reduction targets covering all greenhouse gases and sectors and aligned with nationally-determined pathways to net-zero emissions around mid-century.

As countries prepare to announce these 2035 NDCs in early 2025, it will be important to consider what each country is currently on track for, as a starting point for assessing what additional ambitious action can be taken to get on a pathway to net-zero emissions. There are two main obstacles to setting expectations for countries’ 2035 NDCs: first, a lack of consistent and transparent baseline emissions projections across all major economies; and second, an inability to capture the uncertainty inherent in projecting the future of the global economy and its underlying energy dynamics. Without these, the international community has nothing against which to assess the level of ambition of proposed NDCs.

To fill this gap, the Rhodium Climate Outlook (RCO) provides a comparable and consistent measure of the likely evolution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy trends in the world’s major economies. RCO results are reported as a full probability distribution of outcomes against which to assess not only the most likely future, but the full range of potential outcomes given the inherent uncertainty in future economic growth, fossil fuel prices, and clean energy technology costs.

Read the full report

Explore the data

This year’s edition of the RCO provides economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions projections for all regions of the world and each of the G20 economies under four scenarios:

• The RCO Baseline illustrates what climate future the world is likely on track for absent a major acceleration in the pace of climate policy ambition or accelerated innovation in emerging technologies beyond their current trajectory. It is the starting point for assessing what additional action is needed to reach the global temperature goals in the Paris Agreement.
• The Current NDC Scenario explores a future in which countries all meet their unconditional NDCs by 2030, but countries’ post-2030 levels of climate policy ambition largely follow the path they are on today.
• The Current Mid-Century Commitments Scenario illustrates the outlook for global emissions and temperature if all countries meet their 2030 NDCs and all countries achieve emission reductions consistent with a straight-line path to their current nationally-determined targets of net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality by mid-century.
• The Expanded Net-Zero Commitments Scenario goes even further by adding 2070 net-zero emissions commitments for all remaining countries and expanding commitments by those countries that have only set carbon neutrality commitments to cover all GHGs.

In this 2024 edition of the Rhodium Climate Outlook, we find that:

The world is currently on track to exceed 2°C, but we’ve avoided the most catastrophic projections

Shortly before the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that without additional efforts to reduce emissions, global temperatures would increase between 2.5 and 7.8°C (very likely range, i.e. 90% confidence interval) by the end of the century. Policy and technological progress over the past nine years has significantly reduced the global temperature outlook. We now project in our RCO Baseline very likely temperature increases of 2.0-3.7°C by century’s end, with a 2.2-3.2°C likely (i.e. 67% confidence interval) range, and 2.7°C on average. However, if current trends in policy and technology development continue, we find there is a less than 7% chance of keeping global temperature increases below 2°C, a Paris Agreement goal. An acceleration in the pace of climate policy and technology development will be required to meet the temperature goals in the Paris Agreement.

The world has made progress in decarbonizing electricity and vehicles, but barriers remain

Thanks to several decades of policy and innovation, the world has made considerable progress in decarbonizing power generation and transitioning from internal combustion to electric vehicles. We find that emission reductions in the power sector continue through 2060 in the RCO Baseline, as renewables grow by six to nine times today’s levels by 2050. At the same time, fossil-powered generation likely falls 34-77% below today’s levels. But without ongoing support for variable renewable technologies, along with a significant acceleration in policy and innovation in clean firm generation (e.g., storage, enhanced and advanced geothermal, and advanced nuclear), fossil generation hangs on and even expands in the second half of the century. Underlying these global trends are stark differences between regions. OECD countries and China see the lion’s share of renewable energy investment in the coming decades in the RCO Baseline, with variable renewables rising from a 14% share of total generation today to 67% by 2050 on average. In contrast, the rest of the world starts from a much lower base, with variable renewables growing from just 5% of total generation today to 40% by 2050 on average. Accelerating this progress and ensuring it reaches the rest of the world as well will require addressing barriers to renewable deployment, including transmission and siting issues in OECD countries and China, and access to capital in emerging economies.

Industrial emissions remain stubbornly high, despite some glimmers of hope

While emissions from the power and transport sectors fall, the industrial sector—including steel, cement, chemicals, and refining—faces stronger headwinds on its path to decarbonization. By 2050, industry consumes more fossil fuel than power generation, and emits more greenhouse gases than power, transport, and buildings combined. The good news is we see emissions fall in the coming decades in some of the highest-emitting sectors—including cement and iron and steel production—largely driven by growing adoption of low-emission technologies. But complete decarbonization of industrial production still requires a considerable acceleration in policy and innovation, and decarbonization of all other industrial sectors requires both technology innovation and deployment policy.

If countries meet their current mid-century emissions targets, odds of remaining below 2°C increase significantly

The outlook changes considerably from our RCO Baseline in a world in which countries accelerate their ambition in 2035 and beyond to stay on a path to reach their existing mid-century emissions targets. To date, 149 countries representing 88% of global emissions have set net-zero or carbon neutrality targets in law or other policy documents, or announced by the head of state, including China, the US, the EU, and India. Under this Current Mid-Century Commitments Scenario, we find that the world is very likely on track to see an increase in global mean surface temperature of 1.3-2.5°C and is likely on track for 1.5-2.2°C by century’s end (1.8°C on average) above pre-industrial levels. If countries meet their current near- and long-term emissions commitments, it increases the odds of keeping global mean temperature rise below 2°C from less than 7% to 68%.

If all countries adopt net-zero GHG targets by 2070, odds of keeping temperature rise below 2°C by century’s end jump to 96%

In our Expanded Net-Zero Commitments Scenario, all countries that do not yet have mid-century net-zero goals adopt targets of net-zero emissions by 2070, and countries with carbon-only targets (i.e., China and Saudi Arabia) include all greenhouse gases in their existing targets. Getting all countries to net-zero emissions by 2070 pushes up the odds of keeping end-of-century global mean temperature rise below 2°C to 96% and puts the 1.5°C end of century goal within reach, albeit with a mid-century overshoot. We find a 62% chance of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C by 2100 (1.1-1.7°C likely range) with an average overshoot of 1.7°C in 2050 (1.5 to 1.9°C likely range).

In the full report, we provide an overview of the results of our second annual Rhodium Climate Outlook. In Chapter 2, we outline the outlook for global emissions and global mean surface temperature rise under our four global emissions scenarios. Chapter 3 dives deeper into the regional and sectoral dynamics in our RCO Baseline scenario. Chapter 4 provides a framework for assessing baseline emissions of G20 economies through 2035 and compares that to a straight-line path to reaching each economy’s own mid-century targets.

Read the full report

Explore the data

Technical appendix