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For Immediate Release
November, 12 2025, 10:35am EDT
Contact:
Daela Taeoalii-Tipton Communications Officer Clean Energy & Climate Accountability: dtaeoaliitipton@ucs.org
World Energy Outlook Underscores Inevitable Clean Energy Growth, Urgency of Rapid Fossil Fuel Phaseout
BELÉM, Brazil
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its annual World Energy Outlook today detailing trends in and scenarios for energy demand, supply, and what that means for emissions and economic development. The report highlights how renewable energy is expanding at record levels around the world due to often being the cheapest form of energy available. It also makes clear that energy pathways compatible with climate goals do not require new coal mines, oil and gas fields, or large new fossil fuel infrastructure.
Below is a statement from Dr. Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She is currently attending the U.N. climate talks in Belém, Brazil until November 23.
"The IEA’s latest report underscores the daunting challenge ahead for rapidly decarbonizing the world’s economy but also highlights the opportunity for tremendous wins for consumers’ pocketbooks, public health and addressing energy poverty that pathway provides.
“With the world on the brink of overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius, it’s crucial to prioritize renewable energy, energy efficiency and a climate-resilient energy system. A fast fair phaseout of fossil fuels—coal, oil and gas—is also essential, yet nations continue to recklessly expand these polluting sources of energy at odds with climate goals. All too many political leaders are beholden to entrenched fossil fuel interests who are profiting off perpetuating a fossil fuel-based economy.
“Contrary to the IEA’s framing, cooperation and collaboration among countries will be key to accelerating the manufacture and deployment of clean energy technologies globally. At COP30, we need world leaders to live up to the commitments they made in Dubai to advance a clean energy transition within this critical decade. Richer nations must also provide finance to lower-income countries to enable this transition.
“The choice for decision-makers should be clear: either they invest in a fast, fair transition to clean energy that brings overwhelming benefits, or they will force people to face the rapidly escalating harms and costs of unchecked climate change.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
LATEST NEWS
Venezuela Mobilizes Military as US Aircraft Carrier Approaches
“The only reason to move it there is to use it against Venezuela,” said one policy expert of the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford.
Nov 12, 2025
White House officials have sought to walk back President Donald Trump's repeated threats against Venezuela in recent days—even as the Department of Defense has continue to strike boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific—but officials in the South American country on Tuesday took the arrival of a US aircraft carrier in the region seriously despite the administration's claims that it won't target Venezuela directly.
As the USS Gerald R. Ford entered waters near Latin America, accompanied by three warships, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said Venezuela's entire military arsenal had been placed on "full operational readiness," with President Nicolás Maduro ordering the deployment of nearly 200,000 soldiers.
The government also approved the “massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine, and missile forces," López announced.
Venezuela's military deployment comes weeks after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Ford to relocate from Europe to Latin America following several military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the Trump administration has claimed are meant to stop drug trafficking out of Venezuela—despite the fact that US intelligence agencies and United Nations experts agree that the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the top cause of drug overdoses in the US.
At least 76 people have been killed in the strikes so far, and the Associated Press reported last week that the victims have included an out-of-work bus driver and and a struggling fisherman—people who in some cases had turned to helping drug traffickers transport cocaine across the Caribbean, but were hardly the high-level "narco-terrorists" that Hegseth and Trump have insisted they've killed in the region.
With the carrier strike group entering the Caribbean region, the US now has about 15,000 troops in the area where tensions have escalated since the boat strikes began in September.
Mark Cancian, a senior defense adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Post that Venezuelan officials had good reason to mobilize forces.
“The only reason to move it there is to use it against Venezuela,” Cancian said of the Ford deployment. "The shot clock has started because this is not an asset they can just keep there indefinitely. They have to use it or move it."
Since beginning the boat bombings, Trump has signaled the US attacks could move to Venezuela directly, with the Wall Street Journal reporting late last month that the administration was preparing to target "ports and airports controlled by the military that are allegedly used to traffic drugs, including naval facilities and airstrips."
Trump also authorized Central Intelligence Agency operations last month, falsely claiming the country has "emptied" its prisons into the US and again asserting that "we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela."
Democratic senators have introduced two war powers resolutions aimed at stopping the US from striking inside Venezuela and at halting the boat-bombing campaign—but Republicans have voted them down after administration officials assured the caucus that the White House was not currently planning to attack Venezuela.
Maduro said last month that Trump's actions in the region in recent months amount to attempts at "regime change," adding that "if Venezuela did not possess oil, gas, gold, fertile land, and water, the imperialists wouldn’t even look at our country."
Trump himself said publicly in 2023 that if he had won the 2020 presidential election, "we would have taken [Venezuela] over, we would have gotten all that oil."
Trump: When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil. pic.twitter.com/5q3Jr1j1Ho
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 10, 2023
On Tuesday, both the United Kingdom and Colombia announced that they were halting intelligence sharing with the US in the region, saying that working with the US as it attacks small vessels in the Caribbean could make the countries complicit in violations of international law.
“All levels of law enforcement intelligence are ordered to suspend communications and other agreements with US security agencies,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said. “This measure will remain in place as long as missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean continue. The fight against drugs must be subordinate to the human rights of the Caribbean people.”
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Global Energy Report Offers Choice for Humanity: Renewable Transition or 'Dystopian Future' Pushed by Trump
"At COP30, governments must reject this nightmare fantasy, uphold a just transition, and choose a fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout," said one climate campaigner.
Nov 12, 2025
An International Energy Agency report published Wednesday underscores that world leaders are at a crossroads and must decide whether to embrace an ambitious transition to renewable energy or succumb to the agenda of US President Donald Trump and others bent on propping up the planet-wrecking fossil fuel industry.
The IEA said in its flagship World Energy Outlook that under a so-called "current policies scenario," oil and fracked gas demand could continue to grow until the middle of the century, complicating the organization's earlier projections that global fossil fuel demand could peak by 2030.
The change came amid pressure from the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers in the United States, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases. The New York Times noted Wednesday that "Republicans in Congress have been threatening to cut US government funding to the IEA if it does not change the way it operates."
"In an essay posted online, the authors of this year’s report said they were restoring the current policies scenario because it was appropriate to consider multiple possibilities for the way the future might unfold," the Times added. "They did not say they were responding to pressure from the United States."
Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, said in a statement that the scenarios outlined in the new report "illustrate the key decision points that lie ahead and, together, provide a framework for evidence-based, data-driven discussion over the way forward."
Under all of the scenarios examined by the IEA, "renewables grow faster than any other major energy source" even as the Trump administration works to roll back clean energy initiatives in the US and promote fossil fuel production.
China, the report states, "continues to be the largest market for renewables, accounting for 45-60% of global deployment over the next ten years across the scenarios, and remains the largest manufacturer of most renewable technologies."
The analysis was released as world leaders gathered in Belém, Brazil for the COP30 climate talks, which the Trump administration is boycotting while lobbing attacks from afar.
David Tong, global industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, said the IEA report "sets out a stark and simple choice: We can protect people and communities by safeguarding 1.5ºC [of warming], settle for a disastrous business-as-usual 2.5ºC, or choose to backslide into a nightmare future of much higher warming."
"This year's report also shows Donald Trump's dystopian future, bringing back the old, fossil-fuel intense, high-pollution current policies scenario, charting an unrealistic pathway where governments drag their energy policies backwards and rates of renewable energy adoption stall, leading to high energy prices and unmitigated climate disaster," said Tong. "At COP30, governments must reject this nightmare fantasy, uphold a just transition, and choose a fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout."
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House Progressives Denounce 'Morally Bankrupt' Bill to End Shutdown Without Healthcare Guarantee
"Make no mistake, people will die from these skyrocketing healthcare costs, paired with Republicans’ brutal Medicaid cuts," said Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Nov 12, 2025
As the US House appears likely to vote Wednesday to reopen the government, House progressives issued a scathing rebuke to their Democratic colleagues in the Senate who voted for a funding bill with no guarantee to protect the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans.
With the backing of leadership, the continued resolution was advanced by a group of eight Senate Democrats this weekend to end what has been the longest shutdown in US history.
In a joint statement, the 94-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) announced its opposition to the stopgap funding bill, which it said "includes no provisions to guarantee affordable healthcare and protect tens of millions of Americans from massive price spikes to their premiums, and imposes no strong guardrails to prevent the Trump administration from violating appropriations laws."
The bill agrees to fund the government until the end of 2026, without a deal to extend ACA subsidies that, if allowed to expire at the end of the year, will result in more than 20 million Americans seeing their insurance premiums more than double, according to analysis by KFF. It also introduces no new provisions to prevent President Donald Trump from refusing to spend funds appropriated by Congress, nor does it address the nearly $1 trillion worth of Medicaid cuts passed in July’s GOP spending bill.
"The Senate-passed bill is a betrayal of working people and massively fails to address the urgent needs of the American people,” said CPC Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). “Instead of working toward a fair deal, House Republicans refused to negotiate and abdicated their duty to serve the American people."
"The Senate-passed bill is morally bankrupt. It is indefensible to allow more than 20 million Americans to see their premiums double and let millions lose their healthcare coverage. Healthcare is a human right, and this bill contradicts that fundamental principle," Omar continued. "Make no mistake, people will die from these skyrocketing healthcare costs, paired with Republicans’ brutal Medicaid cuts."
After over a month of holding out, Democrats ultimately cracked under the White House's use of the shutdown to punish segments of the American public: Government workers hit with mass layoffs, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients illegally denied this month’s benefits, and residents of blue states and cities stripped of congressionally appropriated funding for critical infrastructure.
While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) voted no on the deal to break the Democratic filibuster, he is widely understood to be the driving force behind the agreement, supporting the clique of eight Democratic senators who voted with the GOP—none of whom face reelection in 2026—to take the fall.
In the aftermath of the cave, Schumer has faced calls from several House Democrats to step down from leadership, including Reps. Ro Khanna (Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Mike Levin (Calif.). However, none in the Senate, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have joined in that push, even though any one of them could force a vote on his leadership within seven days.
As part of the Senate deal, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) promised that Republicans would hold a vote to extend healthcare subsidies within 40 days. But CPC chairman Greg Casar dismissed it as "nothing but a pinky promise."
“A deal that doesn’t reduce healthcare costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them,” Casar said. “Millions of families would pay the price.”
The CPC has said it will vote no when the bill comes to the House for a vote on Wednesday, as have most other Democrats.
“I will not support any deal that doesn’t improve the lives of working Americans,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the co-chair of the CPC political action committee. “End of story.”
In the GOP-controlled chamber, Democrats cannot stop the bill on their own. But Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can only afford to lose two Republicans, and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has already signaled that he will vote no.
While others, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), have expressed concern and disgust toward her GOP colleagues over the bill's lack of a solution to the looming healthcare apocalypse, there's no indication that enough Republicans will defect to kill the resolution.
On Tuesday, Republicans in the House voted down a Democratic amendment that would have extended ACA subsidies for three years.
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