More than 40 years after the International Energy Agency (IEA) published the first edition of the World Energy Outlook, the report’s overarching aim remains the same – to deepen our understanding of the future of energy. It does so by examining the opportunities and risks that lie ahead, and the consequences of different courses of action or inaction. The WEO analyses the choices that will shape our energy use, our environment and our wellbeing. It is not, and has never been, a forecast of where the energy world will end up.

The energy world is marked by a series of deep disparities. The gap between the promise of energy for all and the fact that almost one billion people still do not have access to electricity. The gap between the latest scientific evidence highlighting the need for evermore- rapid cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions and the data showing that energyrelated emissions hit another historic high in 2018. The gap between expectations of fast, renewables-driven energy transitions and the reality of today’s energy systems in which reliance on fossil fuels remains stubbornly high. And the gap between the calm in wellsupplied oil markets and the lingering unease over geopolitical tensions and uncertainties.

The World Energy Outlook (WEO) does not aim to provide a view on where the energy world will be in 2030 or 2040. This will depend on hugely important choices that lie ahead. What the WEO-2019 does aim to do is to inform decision makers as they design new policies or consider new investments or shape our energy future in other ways. It does so by exploring various possible futures, the ways that they come about, the consequences of different choices and some of the key uncertainties.