World leaders are doubling down on an energy transition that will rely more heavily on renewable sources of energy as we move closer to key climate commitments.
Investment in the energy transition is well underway, with daily news reports announcing new projects for wind, solar, hydro-generation, battery and other storage technologies, hydrogen, bio-based fuels, and carbon capture and storage.
The reality for energy markets is that the global economy is still largely dependent on oil and natural gas as primary energy sources; renewables need to scale significantly to replace them.
Analysts at S&P Global Platts forecast in their baseline scenario that, despite global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), global oil demand will continue to grow slowly throughout this decade and then plateau just below 115 million b/d of oil between the late 2030s and first half of the 2040s.
In the face of forecast oil demand growth, an increased global focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors is encouraging oil and gas market participants to produce, invest in, and trade in energy resources with lower associated emissions.
Market demand is growing for "low-carbon" oil and gas supplies, which are fossil fuel resources produced with a lower rate of GHG emissions.
Markets, in turn, play a key role in facilitating the valuation, trade, and delivery of these lower-carbon resources. New technologies and trading tools offer the energy sector different options to address emissions from current, transition, and future energy sources, and to do so much more quickly and with less risk.
Meanwhile, the data sets generated by tracking and monitoring energy sources and their emissions and other ESG attributes are growing in size and number. In this new context, it is not only the tools for handling the data that are important but the quality and reliability of the data itself. Assigning market value correctly and incentivizing the right investments and shifts in the energy system depend on it.
The data sets generated by tracking and monitoring energy sources and their emissions and other ESG attributes are growing in size and number.
