GDP and AL industry included, here’s how the world could double prosperity while using less energy
There’s a neat paradox at the heart of the clean-energy debate: richer societies typically use more energy, yet the latest modelling from the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) suggests we can (provided that we choose to) have a lot more of the good things that energy delivers (travel, cooling, manufacturing) while using less energy overall. The ETC’s October 2025 briefing argues that smart electrification, appliance efficiency and material recycling could let the global economy more than double by 2050 while cutting final energy demand by about 24 per cent compared with today.
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That claim is startling because it rewrites a default storyline: growth equals more energy, which in turn leads to more emissions. The ETC’s subtler point focuses on energy productivity, the economic output we squeeze from each unit of energy, and shows how technology and systems change can deliver magnified services (kilometres travelled, heated and cooled floors, industrial output) with far smaller energy inputs.
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