Energy in Demand News, June 8-9, 2025

behaviour/attitudes, building renovation, buildings, carbon emissions, climate change, climate policy, communication, consumers, electrification, energy efficiency, energy transition, financial instruments, fossil fuels, GHG emissions, international co-operation, national policies, renewable energy, resource efficiency

Global energy investment is set to increase in 2025 to a record $3.3 trillion despite headwinds from elevated geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty, a new IEA report says. Clean energy technologies will attract twice as much capital as fossil fuels. Investment in clean technologies – renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification – is on course to hit a record $2.2 trillion this year. That is double what will be invested in fossil fuels in 2025. The IEA forecasts a 6% drop in spending on oil production this year and overall spending on fossil fuels will shrink 2% this year. The Financial Times quotes Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA: “This is the first time we have seen such a decline, except for Covid, because of lower prices and lower oil demand.”

The Financial Times reports that Union Investment, a Germany asset manager, has divested all of its holdings in US oil major ExxonMobil, accusing the company of “insufficient commitment” to climate targets. Henrik Pontzen, Union Investment’s head of sustainability is quoted: “As part of our climate strategy, we require all companies to commit to long-term, comprehensive climate targets. If a company fails to even set such targts, we see no basis to assume it will achieve them.” Union Investment is free from pressure by the Trump administration because it has “no American clients, no subsidiaries there, and is not dependent on US government contracts.”

David Sanger writes in the New  York Times that it is a really bad time to be an expert in Washington. One paragraph he writes is particularly important for us: “At the Environmental Protection Agency, self-protective action has replaced scientific inquiry. “We’ve taken the words ‘climate’ and ‘green energy’ off every project document,” one scientist still in the government’s employ said recently, refusing to speak on the record for obvious reasons.” CNN reported Friday that experts who are suspected of speaking to the press off the record are increasingly being subjected to lie detector tests.

There is uncomfortable reading about activities in other countries. The Financial Times reports: “Leading climate scientists have accused politicians in New Zealand and Ireland of using an “accounting trick” to back their sheep and cattle industries, warning their support for methane-emitting livestock could undermine global efforts to fight climate change.”

On a more positive note, check out this Euronews YouTube video: EU shows record-low energy use amid efficiency gains and renewables surge.

Adam Smith (1723-1790), the Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment, provides us with some of his enlightenment: “To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.”

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