Climate Faithful Admit Need for Fossil Fuels
For years, critics of climate orthodoxy warned that a fossil-fuel-free future was an illusion. Now, even the world’s leading energy authorities are conceding what physics, economics, and reality have long made clear.
For years, sensible voices outside the climate establishment warned that a future free of fossil fuels was physically impossible. As energy sources and as feedstocks, oil, natural gas and coal are the foundation of modern civilization. Hardly any product – whether the fertilizer that makes possible food for billions or the plastics for medical devices, smartphones and thousands of other items – is not dependent on hydrocarbons in some fashion.
Yet, green activists sold the fantasy of a “decarbonized” world as inevitable. Supposedly upon us was peak oil – the point at which the production of probably the planet’s most useful commodity begins a terminal decline.
Operating like a pagan religion, the climate establishment punished dissent, silenced debate and enforced conformity. Governments, corporations and media outlets mindlessly repeated the mantra of “net zero,” neither understanding the objective was impossible to achieve nor foreseeing the damage that would be done in pursuing it. The public has endured relentless sermons, impassioned pleas and terrifying predictions from a powerful cabal of activists, subsidized media platforms and cynical politicians.
Nonetheless, the truth has broken through from the most influential global energy information body, the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA’s latest policy outlook shatters the core pretense of the environmental movement, acknowledging emphatically that demand for oil and natural gas will continue to grow until 2050.
The IEA says that oil demand is not only holding steady but rising – expected to reach 113 million barrels per day by mid-century, roughly 13% higher than 2024 levels. The same report projects that natural gas demand will expand dramatically, especially through liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets, which are forecast to grow from 560 billion cubic meters in 2024 to more than 1,000 billion cubic meters by 2050.
After years of manipulative modeling to validate climate illusions, the agency had to confront hard data that showed rising consumption, growing populations, industrial expansion and the energy needs of AI, cloud computing and electrified transport. These forces mean the need for fossil fuels will remain for decades to come.
The IEA’s new forecast also recognizes a demand surge from the Global South. Countries like India, Nigeria and Indonesia are prioritizing energy access over ideological purity. They are building refineries, coal mines and energy infrastructure to secure their future. Clear-eyed leaders know that raising millions out of generational poverty takes precedence over indulging the lunacy of wealthy elites who profess to lose sleep over a theoretical warming of a couple degrees 100 years in the future.
The massive expansion of AI data centers and electrification efforts – once cited as proof of a “green” revolution – are driving higher demand for fossil fuels. The digital age requires continuous power and the hydrocarbons to provide it.
The death certificate for the “peak oil” delusion has been issued.
Why did the energy establishment get it so wrong? Because physics never cared about political narratives. The laws of nature and economics are immutable. Replacing the proven power of hydrocarbons with politically favored technologies was fundamentally infeasible.
Wind and solar are dreadfully bad on every front – land-intensive, resource-heavy and often unavailable when most needed. Wind, hydrogen and solar are impracticable. Period.
Claims that these technologies are economical are based on metrics that exclude the staggering costs of backup power (usually natural gas plants) for intermittent wind and solar, of new transmission lines and of stabilizing a power grid made unstable by “green” machines.
Fossil fuels, therefore, will remain the backbone of electricity generation, as IEA’s data indicates. Even under optimistic assumptions for the growth of nuclear power, oil and gas are projected to dominate through mid-century.
The number of climate crusaders willing to deny this reality seemingly dwindle with each passing week.
This commentary was first published at CO2 Coalition’s Substack December 17.
Vijay Jayaraj
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
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