WASHINGTON — Despite persistently high oil prices, global energy demand will grow by 50 percent over the next two decades with continued heavy reliance on environmentally troublesome fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, the government predicted Wednesday.
The report forecast the steepest increases in China and other emerging economies where energy demand is expected to be 85 percent greater in 2030 than it is today.
“What jumps out is the very strong growth in the emerging economies,” said Guy Caruso, head of the federal Energy Information Administration, which conducted the long-term energy outlook.
The projections said that without mandatory actions to address global warming, the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide flowing into the atmosphere each year from energy use will be 51 percent greater in 2030 than it was three years ago.
“Fossil fuels . . . are expected to continue supplying much of the energy used worldwide,” the report predicts.
